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   Dropbox Public Folder Leaves and Returns

   Adam C. Engst

   One notable feature of the Dropbox file-sharing service is the Public
   folder. Put any file or folder in that folder, Control-click the file,
   and choose Dropbox > Copy Public Link to get a download URL for that
   item, while not exposing any other items in the Public folder or having
   to set up explicit sharing. When clicked, the file loads in the user's
   Web browser, which means, for everything other than the file types that
   Web browsers display internally (HTML, JPG, GIF, often PDF), that the
   file downloads immediately.

   It's a great way to let someone ' or better yet, an arbitrary group '
   download a file without sending it in email or fussing with a
   specialized service like YouSendIt. (Such services have their place,
   since they offer additional features such as time-limited downloads,
   password protection, and so on. But they're often overkill, and Dropbox
   is super easy.)

   You can even use Dropbox's Public folder as a way of publishing a
   simple Web site; just put all your site files in a folder, copy that
   folder to the Public folder, and use the same technique to get the URL
   to the index.html file of the site. As long as your site uses relative
   links for internal navigation, everything will just work.

   A few months ago, however, Dropbox made it possible to share any file
   or folder from any place in the Dropbox hierarchy in much the same way.
   Control-click the file and choose Dropbox > Get Link. This nominally
   does the same thing ' enables you to share a single file or folder via
   a URL without sharing the enclosing folder with that person. But
   there's a difference. This new method always displays a Web page on the
   Dropbox Web site, displaying the content if the browser can do so. But
   if it can't display the content, instead of downloading the file as
   happens with files in the Public folder, Dropbox displays a custom Web
   page that lets the user download the file or add it to their own
   Dropbox. And as a result, you can't publish a simple Web site that way.

   [1][tn_Dropbox-shared-file.jpg]

   This is all well and good, but you might think that these two features
   sound quite similar. That's where our story starts, about a month ago,
   when [2]word appeared on the Dropbox forums that Dropbox would be
   eliminating the Public folder from new accounts. Current accounts would
   retain the Public folder, Dropbox said, but the company claimed that
   many users were confused by the Public folder and shared files offering
   essentially the same functionality.

   This announcement provoked a storm of protest ' and even a [3]'Save the
   Public Folder' petition that garnered over 900 signatures ' since even
   if only a small percentage of Dropbox users rely on the Public folder,
   some of those who do have use cases that require a direct file access
   rather than an intermediate Web page. Plus, some developers had built
   [4]software that assumes the presence of a Public folder.

   Luckily, about a week after the initial announcement, Dropbox pulled
   back, with another [5]forum post saying that new users wouldn't have
   the Public folder enabled by default, but that there would be a way for
   them to get one. That post also said that developers should still avoid
   relying on the Public folder, since not every Dropbox user would
   necessarily have one, but the company wants to provide equivalent
   functionality through the API where possible. It's not quite clear if
   that is true at the moment, but progress is being made.

   It's easy to see this as a tempest in a teapot, but without a fly on
   the wall at Dropbox headquarters, there's no way of knowing if the
   public outcry was key for the company making the Public folder an
   option for new users and extended the Dropbox API for developers. It's
   entirely possible that Dropbox simply underestimated the desire for the
   Public folder and some of its associated features, and the hue and cry
   from users and developers alike caused the change in policy. If so,
   there's no reason to assume negative intentions anywhere ' Dropbox
   removed the feature to make the product easier for new users, and after
   hearing customer feedback, reinstated it for those who want it and
   extended the API to compensate further.

   The moral of the story would seem to be that all's well that ends well,
   and if you're helping a new user set up Dropbox in the future, you may
   need to poke around in the settings to enable the Public folder.

References

   1. http://tidbits.com/resources/2012-07/Dropbox-shared-file.png
   2. http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=62381&replies=30#post-443012
   3. https://www.dropbox.com/votebox/9527/save-the-public-folder-
   4. http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=62403
   5. http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=62403&replies=10#post-445432

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