Apple is making changes to a key macOS file management API that should make cloud apps like Dropbox Forced to drop support for syncing with external storage devices.
The API in question is the File Provider, which synchronizes user documents with remote storage units. The company has made changes to its behavior, and as of the latest versions of macOS Ventura, the tool will require cloud services to keep their files in a specific folder on the local system.
With this, the folder with files saved in Dropbox will be located in “CloudStorage”, in the Library. This will prevent the cloud storage service from syncing with file locations stored on third-party devices such as external SSDs.
“Due to the change in the Dropbox folder location, files that were previously linked in some third-party apps will need to be relinked,” explains the Dropbox support page.
The change could cause serious damage to the company, as users who depend on an external storage device for projects synchronized with the cloud service were caught by surprise, and will possibly look for alternative services.
For now, there is still no way to know if other cloud storage providers will experience the same problem, but it is possible that a significant portion uses the API File Provider. Apple has not commented on the matter.
Dropbox will roll over automatically via an update already available on the server side, so all users should end up getting the new version over the next few weeks.
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