My photos will soon disappear! Thank you Dropbox!

[retired2]

I recently got a notice from Dropbox (the service I use to host all my web photos) advising me they will be eliminating public folders and making them private in March.  When that happens every photo I have posted in web forums will appear as bad links!

Not exactly sure what I am going to do, but I am open to suggestions.  I suspect there is no option that will avoid having to go back and create all new links, a daunting proposition!

[phil (admin)]

I was hoping there would be an SMF plugin that could go through a thread and "grab" copies of attachments hosted elsewhere, and switch them to hosted here.  But I'm afraid I can't find anything.

Maybe we could turn the thread into a PDF and post that somehow?

This is why I'm anti-change.

[retired2]

Anytime you take advantage of a free service, you set yourself up for being cut off at the knees.  Same thing happened to me this past year with Picasaweb photo albums. Once Google took over, they decided to replace Picasaweb with their product.  A lot of work went down the drain and sharing is now far more difficult.

I guess the safest thing to do is link separator images here.  It will take some time, and I'm not sure if file sizes will have to be adjusted.  It has been so long since I've done this I will probably have to experiment a bit.

Thanks for investigating a "bulk" solution.  I don't know if many other folks are using Dropbox or not.  I checked a few and they were hosted by photobucket.

[bbain]

Retired, I think you can set the individual items in your "public" folder to be shared and the path remains the same.  It may be worth investigating so it saves you the hassle of tracking down every forum post you have made.

[retired2]

Retired, I think you can set the individual items in your "public" folder to be shared and the path remains the same.  It may be worth investigating so it saves you the hassle of tracking down every forum post you have made.

I've been following a very long, very angry, thread on the Dropbox forum regarding this policy change.  My problems pale in comparison to some other users.  There are bloggers with years of linked images, university professors and high school teachers who use it as part of their teaching program, and there are many business people who also use the service.  Through a google search one user determined there are well over a million images on the web that will go dark in a few months, and due to his search criteria, it could be many millions.  To make matters worse, many of these users are actually paying Dropbox an annual subscription for their accounts.  Dropbox is getting slammed everywhere for this abrupt policy change, long threads are popping up on many forums, even the printed media has picked up this story.

My understanding after reading a response from a Dropbox representative is that none of the links from the public folder will work, not even with editing.  A new link must be created for each image. And if I simply replace the existing link with the new link, only the link will display, not the image.  However, there is a minor edit that can be made to the link that will cause the image to display.

So, if I can find every photo I have ever linked in multiple threads and forums, and then one by one replace the link with a new one that must be edited, I'm back in business.  However, I've got the same concern as every other Dropbox user, i.e. after I've gone to all that work, how long before they slam that door shut or decide to charge an exorbitant fee.  They have lost the trust of their entire customer base, and many are simply moving on.

[bbain]

Hopefully there will be enough outcry that dropbox will make it at least somewhat easy to maintain the links to pictures.

[retired2]

Hopefully there will be enough outcry that dropbox will make it at least somewhat easy to maintain the links to pictures.

Well Dropbox has not blinked!  They are dug in.  They don't even respond to account holders, or make any attempt to explain why they are doing this.  "Sorry for the inconvenience" is the most you can get out of them.  So, on 3/15 the lights go out unless you create all new links for every photo.

I've put in a marathon session to find and create new links to my all my photos in the Thien forum.  If I've done everything correctly my photos will continue to display when Dropbox kills all the links to their public folders presumably at midnight on 3/15.

I'm anxiously awaiting the deadline and keeping my fingers crossed.

[retired2]

March 16th and it appears all new photo links are working, that's good news.  Now I have to worry if Dropbox will eventually cut off photo hosting altogether.  Then I'll get to do this all over again!. 

I guess now I will try to find all forgotten photos I've posted in other forums and correct those links.   >:(

[Schreck]

R2,
On behalf of everyone, thank you for making the substantial effort to preserve your photos on this forum.  A picture is worth a thousand words.
-Schreck

[retired2]

R2,
On behalf of everyone, thank you for making the substantial effort to preserve your photos on this forum.  A picture is worth a thousand words.
-Schreck

Your quite welcome Schreck, and thanks for your support over the years.  I realized most of my threads would be worthless without the photos, and I didn't want that to happen to a thread with nearly 100,000 views.  Obviously, somebody has found that one worthwhile.