Users Revolt As Dropbox Plans To Kill Public Folders Functionality

News of the change in policy was first widely made known yesterday via an email that Dropbox began sending to users. The message states:

We’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.

Many users took to the Dropbox forums to express their displeasure with the news, with most saying that the move affects how they upload and display pictures on public forums.

“I am in exact same position as narikka having used drop box for years using links for photos on review forums,” writes user Scorpion66. “No way can i waste the rest of my life redoing all the links to photos. Cheers Dropbox you just screwed up about 5 years worth of post + reviews for no real reason.”

“I have years of public links in thousands of posts to dozens of web forums that link to pictures and short videos in my public folder,” added NFAToys. “With one broad arbitrary decision, and without asking your paying customers how it will affect them, you've negated my only reason for being a Dropbox customer.”

h0ndre added to the pile, writing, “If this is true than there will be a lot of x-es instead of images on forums that I used in past years. I hope those x-es can be translated to ‘Courtesy of stupid ignorant decision of Dropbox’.”

Unless Dropbox decides to change its policy (not likely), users are in for a rude awakening come September 2017. In the meantime, Dropbox is encouraging users to create shared links instead.