Stupid Dropbox tricks

OK, so this is a dumb one, I was looking for a shared folder that someone had sent me, a couple of notes:

  1. When you get a share, you want to make sure you choose Share and do *not* create a link and share that. The former semantics are that this is a synchronized copy. But the later is that it is a one time snapshot.
  2. When you get it, the shared folder does *not* appear in the Dropbox files that are synchronized down. Like Google Drive, you have to manually choose “Add” from the dropbox.com web interface. When you do that, the folder becomes part of your disk quota. So only Add things that you really want to change.
  3. When you add it, if you accidentally move the file down, it will seem to disappear, but in Dropbox land, moving a folder somewhere in your hierarchy doesn’t change anything. I “lost” some folders that I accidentally copied down and they seemed gone, but you can move them anyway, they don’t need to live in the root.
  4. Finally, there are some strange semantics where you can share a folder to yourself. If you then choose Add, you get this bizarre case where you have two folders names the same (actually one has a “(1)”) suffix.

I’m Rich & Co.

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