Dropbox drops external-drive sync on macOS, stranding terabyte archives

9to5Mac reported the change on 14 February 2023: as part of Dropbox's move to Apple's File Provider framework, its macOS client would no longer support keeping the Dropbox folder on an external drive. Under the new framework, "all content from cloud apps on macOS will now be moved to the ~/Library/CloudStorage folder for privacy reasons," leaving no supported way to point Dropbox at storage outside the system (boot) volume. Dropbox said it planned a client update supporting "macOS Monterey 12.5 and later in the coming months," and 9to5Mac reported that a Dropbox representative had told a user on the Dropbox Community forum that nothing could be done about it because it was a macOS limitation

For many users this was a breaking change rather than a minor inconvenience. People who relied on Dropbox to sync large libraries — photographers, video editors, and others with multi-terabyte archives — had deliberately kept the Dropbox folder on a large external drive precisely because the content did not fit, or did not belong, on their Mac's internal SSD. With external-drive support removed, those users faced moving everything onto the boot volume (often impossible on space grounds) or abandoning the workflow.

The reaction 9to5Mac quoted from one affected user captures that bind directly: "This ruins my entire workflow as a traveling photographer. What makes it all worse is that my 2020 iMac (homebase) you can't upgrade the internal due to another Apple limitation."