Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others • Hacker News Board

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#381

Post by vunderba » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

appreciatorBus wrote: post #239

Neil44 wrote: post #179

The issue with a client app backing up dropbox and onedrive folders on your computer is the files on demand feature, you could sync a 1tb onedrive to your 250gb laptop but it's OK because of smart/selective sync aka files on demand. Then backblaze backup tries to back the folder up and requests a download of every single file and now you have zero bytes free, still no backup and a sick laptop. You could oauth the bac…

Shoutout to Arq backup which simply gives you an option in backup plans for what to do with cloud only files: - report an error - ignore - materialize Regardless, if you make it back up software that doesn’t give this level of control to users, and you make a change about which files you’re going to back up, you should probably be a lot more vocal with your users about the change. Vanishingly few people read release…

I honestly didn't even realize Backblaze had a clientside app. Very happy user of Arq - been running a daily scheduled dual backup of my HDD to an external NAS and Backblaze B2 for years with zero issues.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#382

Post by cobertos » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #377

Lord_Zero wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why no linux support?

If it's open-source, Linux support is only a few hours with Claude away. If it's not open-source, but the protocol is documented, see above. If it's not open-source, and the protocol isn't documented, well... that makes the decision easy, doesn't it?

Backups software written by Claude? No thanks.

I've used enough Claude coded applications that I wouldn't trust that with a backup, unless it had extensive tests along with it.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#383

Post by realo » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #352

jrmg wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but even if that’s working it breaks the user experience of services like this that ‘files I used recently are on my device’. After a backup, you’d go out to a coffee shop or on a plane only to find that the files in the synced folder you used yesterday, and expected to still be there, were not - but photos from ten years ago were available!

That shouldn't be seen as Backblaze's problem. It's Dropbox's problem that they made their product too complicated for users to reason about. The original Dropbox concept was "a folder that syncs" and there would be nothing problematic about Backblaze or anything else trying to back it up like any other folder. Today's Dropbox is a network file system with inscrutable cache behavior that seeks to hide from the users…

If I backup a file, I need to read that file. The rest is in the management layer underneath that file.

Seems simple enough to do for Backblaze, no?

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#384

Post by hiddendoom45 » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #330

ramses0 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to talk about The Cone of Backups(tm), which you and I seem to have separately derived! Props for getting this implemented and seemingly trusted... I wish there was an easier way to handle some of this stuff (eg: tiny secure key material => hot syncthing => "live" git files => warm docs and photos => cold bulk movies, isos, etc)... along with selective "on demand pass through browse/fetch/cache" They all have…

Does syncthing work yet? ~ 5 years ago, I had a development flow that involved a large source tree (1-10K files, including build output) that was syncthing-ed over a residential network connection to some k8s stuff. Desyncs/corruptions happened constantly, even though it was a one-way send. I've never had similar issues with rsync or unison (well, I have in unison, but that's two-way sync, and it always prompted to a…

I've personally had no major issues with syncthing, it just works in the background, the largest folder I have synced is ~6TB and 200k files which is mirroring a backup I have on a large external.

One particular issue I've encountered is that syncthing 2.x does not work well for systems w/o an SSD due to the storage backend switching to sqlite which doesn't perform as well as leveldb on HDDs, the scans of the 6TB folder was taking an excessively long time to complete compared to 1.x using leveldb. I haven't encountered any issues with mixing the use of 1.x and 2.x in my setup. The only other issues I've encountered are usually related to filename incompatibilites between filesystems.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#385

Post by zachrip » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

kaszanka wrote: post #46

Jolter wrote: post #20

To the author: please use a darker font. Preferably black. I’m only in my 40’s, I don’t require glasses (yet) and I have to actively squint to read your site on mobile. Safari, iPhone. I’m pretty sure you’re under the permitted contrast levels under WCAG.

Surprisingly only the headings (2.05) and links (3.72) fail the Firefox accessibility check, the body text is 5.74. But subjectively it seems worse and I definitely agree with you that the contrast is too low.

I think the accessibility checks only take into account the text color, not the actual real world readability of given text which in this case is impossible to read because of the font weight.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#386

Post by reddalo » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

ibizaman wrote: post #343

julianozen wrote: post #335

We are going to drop blackblaze over this We discovered this change recently because my dad was looking for a file that Dropbox accidentally overwrote which at first we said “no problem. This is why we pay for backblaze” We had learned that this policy had changed a few months ago, and we were never notified. File was unrecoverable If anyone at backblaze is reading this, I pay for your product so I can install you on…

Why not just use backblaze as cold storage and use restic or another tool with a GUI to backup to it?

Backblaze Computer Backup != B2 Cloud Storage

You can't connect to their Computer Backup service through third-party software.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#387

Post by bombcar » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #368

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an example of a consumer facing SaaS that's been able to handle the "unlimited" in a way you'd consider positive?

US cellular data plans? Where it's throttled after soft cap? Although I will say it's been nice to have them give more transparency around their actual soft cap numbers.

That’s an example of where unlimited can work (because the limit is a number of hours of degraded service which is quantifiable).

Storage was already a hairy beast with the original setup, and it would be much better if they had defined limits you could at least know about (and pay for).

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#388

Post by devnulled » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

I highly recommend switching to something more like Arq and then using whatever backend storage that you want. There are probably some other open source ways to do it, etc, but Arq scratches the itch of having control over your backups and putting them where you want with a GUI to easily configure/keep track of what is going on.

Maybe there's something newer/better now (and I bought lifetime licenses of it long ago), but it works for me.

That said, I use Arq + Backblaze storage and I think my monthly bill is very low, like under $5. Though I haven't backed-up much media there yet, but I do have control over what is being backed-up.

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#389

Post by Gud » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #370

wafflebot wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to drop Backblaze for my entire company over this. I need it to capture local data, even though that local data is getting synced to Google Drive. Where we sync our data really has nothing to do with Backblaze backing up the endpoint. We don't wholly trust sync, that's why we have backup. On my personal Mac I have iCloud Drive syncing my desktop, and a while back iCloud ate a file I was working on. Backblaz…

Bidirectional auto file sync is a fundamentally broken pattern and I'm tired of pretending it's not. It's just complete chaos with wrong files constantly getting overridden on both ends. I have no clue why people still use it and I'd cut my losses if I were you, either backup to the cloud or pull from it, not both at the same time like an absolute tictac.

Why is this downvoted?

Re: Backblaze has stopped backing up OneDrive and Dropbox folders and maybe others

#390

Post by lelandfe » Tue, Apr 14, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

cestith wrote: post #298

embedding-shape wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alas, "isn't so developed" applies to the US Wow, I knew that was generally true, didn't know it was true for internet access in the US too, how backwards... > A common term is "data cap": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_cap I think most are familiar with throttling because most (all?) phone plans have some data cap at one point, but I don't think I've heard of any broadband connections here with data caps, that…

I have 5 Gbps symmetric at home. I and my fiancee both work from home, so our backup fiber connection from another provider is 2 Gbps. We can also both tether to cell phones if necessary. We can get 5G home wireless Internet here, too, and we might ditch our 2 Gbps line in favor of that as a backup. We moved from Texas back home to Illinois last year, and one of the biggest considerations was who had service at what…

Here in dense NYC, most apartments I've lived in have but a single ISP available. It's common to hunt for apartments by searching the address on service maps.

I'm pretty sure one landlord was cut in by his ISP, as he skipped town when I tried to ask about getting fiber, and his office locked their door and drew their shades when I went there with a technician on two occasions. The final time, we got there before they opened and the woman ran into the office and slammed the door on us.