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Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

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Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#2
I’ve used Maestral a few times and find it works best with narrower folder limits—I ultimately went with the official Dropbox client for my M1 but I use it on an x86 machine in which I only need a handful of folders.

The creator is doing good stuff.

Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#4
post #3

> Maestral uses the public Dropbox API which, unlike the official client, does not support transferring only those parts of a file which changed ("binary diff"). Maestral may therefore use more bandwidth that the official client.

Save 60 MB on Electron, burn 10 TB of bandwidth

Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#5
post #3

> Maestral uses the public Dropbox API which, unlike the official client, does not support transferring only those parts of a file which changed ("binary diff"). Maestral may therefore use more bandwidth that the official client.

Save 60 MB on Electron, burn 10 TB of bandwidth

imagine using Dropbox with those storage requirements...

Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#6
post #3

> Maestral uses the public Dropbox API which, unlike the official client, does not support transferring only those parts of a file which changed ("binary diff"). Maestral may therefore use more bandwidth that the official client.

Save 60 MB on Electron, burn 10 TB of bandwidth

Works for my workflow. I work on reasonably small files (my whole cloud storage is about 20 gb) and I like to have the storage available in my file manager at all times. Wouldn't want to run proprietary software or waste memory on it.

The biggest problem I have with these 3rd party clients is sometimes things just don't work right. Like for example gimp just fails to open files in the synced folder (google drive not the OP project) until I copy them out and open them. Not sure what the issue is though.

Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#7
I was a very early Dropbox adopter but eventually switched to OneDrive a few years back because they bundled Office 365 with 1 TB of storage. I just went and looked at the official Dropbox plans to see if there was a family plan similar to the 5 users I get with Office 365/OneDrive...and found their plan/pricing page overwhelming. There's rows upon rows of features to compare across versions like "Traffic and Insights" and the "Plus button" forcing me to keep scrolling just to see that a family plan costs $16.99 a month for 2 TB. No option for a cheaper plan with less storage. I feel like they are missing the mark when it comes to marketing to consumers here.

Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#8
post #3

> Maestral uses the public Dropbox API which, unlike the official client, does not support transferring only those parts of a file which changed ("binary diff"). Maestral may therefore use more bandwidth that the official client.

Save 60 MB on Electron, burn 10 TB of bandwidth

I would make that tradeoff in a second.

Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#9
post #7

I was a very early Dropbox adopter but eventually switched to OneDrive a few years back because they bundled Office 365 with 1 TB of storage. I just went and looked at the official Dropbox plans to see if there was a family plan similar to the 5 users I get with Office 365/OneDrive...and found their plan/pricing page overwhelming. There's rows upon rows of features to compare across versions like "Traffic and Insight…

> There's rows upon rows of features to compare across versions

After you grow as a company and hire lots of engineers and your core product is "good enough", you have to try to pivot/stay relevant/compete/innovate I guess. Lots of manpower (I have no idea how large their engineering team is) need to be kept busy I guess?

Re: Open-source Dropbox client, with multi-account, no-device-limit and M1 support

#10
post #7

I was a very early Dropbox adopter but eventually switched to OneDrive a few years back because they bundled Office 365 with 1 TB of storage. I just went and looked at the official Dropbox plans to see if there was a family plan similar to the 5 users I get with Office 365/OneDrive...and found their plan/pricing page overwhelming. There's rows upon rows of features to compare across versions like "Traffic and Insight…

Similar experience. I pay for the 100GB Google one plan which comes with the excellent google photos service and I went to see what dropbox offers and found their cheapest plan was extremely expensive comparatively and they offer less features. I'm just not sure how they even compete at this point when they do the same thing as every other cloud storage product but cost more. And you even have to pay extra for family sharing which is just free with Google.
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