As Apple has made lots of improvements to iCloud storage, has anyone who currently uses (or has formerly used) Dropbox pivoted to using only iCloud in the same capacity? If so what are the pros and cons?
I have been a long time user of Dropbox but over the last few years I see it going in a different direction dev wise. Their virtual abandonment of Dropbox Paper is a good example. As I pay for both Dropbox and iCloud subscriptions, I’d like to be able to safely pivot away from relying on dropbox for file storage, backups and most importantly sharing and collaboration.
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Bob Rabner
I have. I used to use Dropbox before iCloud Drive existed. Then I used both. But I stopped my Dropbox subscription since I stopped using it completely. Loved Dropbox, no problems with it, just don't need both it and iCloud Drive.
For me the main advantage to Dropbox was that it was cross-platform. It works just as easily on Windows as Mac. So when I worked with other people not using Macs, it was easy for us all to share files. Also, a lot of them just used Dropbox so it was a matter of being where everyone else was. I wonder if that would be the same now with so many people using Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, among others.
What Dropbox still has, I believe, is an assortment of interesting extra features. Like I remember you could easily throw some images in a folder to make a public gallery. They also had a way to upload files where they then ceased to be on your local drive -- essentially server "storage" instead of a cloud service. It only worked so-so when I tried it though.
Thank you so much for the reply. I value your perspective and expertise immensely. I realized while reading your response that I do in fact rely on Dropbox "cloud only" storage for a significant amount of archived client files (it has improved over time). I will have to weight that into my eventual decision. But the fact that you have successfully made the switch is a major thumb on the scale for iCloud.
Bob: Nothing wrong with continuing to use both. I actually use Google Drive now too, but just because my server backup functionality has an easy was to "backup to Google Drive" so it is worth it for me just to do that one thing.
I concur about using both. In fact I also use Google drive to a lesser extent, although I'm not a fan of the interface. As I have clients that work in each of the 3 environment, I guess that really answers my original question. While it's possible to drop dropbox, it's not practical for the foreseeable future. Thanks for your time and your insight.
I use DB with Boxcryptor on a late 2013 iMac for almost 10 years now. Lately I upgraded from Catalina to MacOS 13 (Ventura) using OCLP. All works like charme still. But with the technical changes at DB and Boxcryptor ahead, to comply to Apple's new requirements, I decided to switch to iCloud Drive and moved my 50 GB data there. After a few days I had to return to my old structure as iCloud Drive slowed down my iMac really bad. My spoofed system or the old machine might be the reason...
@Martin: I'm an iCloud Drive user (about 75 GB on a 2019 iMac) and have no speed issues, albeit with a newer iMac than you, but with some very lack-lustre broadband speeds at my location. I was wondering if yours may have been just initially slow because of the time needed to sync all 50GB when iCloud Drive is first switched on.