5 ms·

Dropbox will require App Indicator support on Linux

30 points by butz 1y ago

butz 1y ago
Some interesting news from Dropbox app this morning: "Your desktop environment doesn't support the Dropbox tray icon. Starting May 27, 2025, Dropbox updates will require App Indicator support. To continue using the tray, update your environment." Only Unity and KDE Plasma desktop environments are supported, others, e.g. GNOME, XFCE, MATE will require installing an extension or plugin.
- eru 1y ago
  Interesting. So if I wanted to use dropbox without a desktop environment, I'd need to fake a tray, so it can pretend to put an icon in there? (I normally use XMonad, and it's very far from a complete desktop environment. It's only a fairly minimal window manager.)
  - sakjur 1y ago
    There seems to be a headless mode with lower requirements (scroll to the bottom and expand the Q about headless). This is for the ”full desktop experience”.
    - eru 1y ago
      Oh, that makes sense. Thanks!
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway314155 1y ago
  I'm never going to understand why desktop environments don't support app indicators. In particular GNOME, which is meant to be accessible to a broader audience. This was the reason I switched to KDE Plasma, which is excellent these days.
  - Longhanks 1y ago
    In what way is Gnome meant to be accessible to a broader audience? They clearly do not give that impression; a broader audience would be interested in tray icons, desktop icons, theming support — ideas they clearly reject.
    - throwaway314155 1y ago
      I mean, with such a bad-faith read of what I said; you'd have to be right. We are in agreement. No need to twist words about to make it seem like we aren't.
  - rkangel 1y ago
    If I look at my Windows system tray, it's full of random crap that I never look at and never need to. Windows has to have functionality to automatically hide icons you don't interact with. I can see why Gnome has decided just to do away with the concept.
teekert 1y ago
Honestly it's the first thing I install on Gnome. It's just annoying that it's not on by default and I don't understand what the devs have against it. I use the Tailscale, Nextcloud, ProtonVPN and Solaar indicators. I could understand if they "rethought" how indicators work, but why make everyone jump through the hoop of installing an extension? (At least that is how it is on Arch and NixOS, Ubuntu may be different). Other than this, I absolutely love Gnome, I feel 0 need to tweak (other than before mentioned), some nicer tiling would be nice thought ;) Also: Requiring an App Indicator seems a bit harsh on the more minimal DEs. Are there any apps that are like a window but with your indicators or something?
- Sander_Marechal 1y ago
  I like the "Forge" extension for tiling: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4481/forge/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4481/forge/
- seba_dos1 1y ago
  > Are there any apps that are like a window but with your indicators or something? Yes, and the API isn't very complex so you could easily write your own indicator host if you wanted to anyway.
emigre 1y ago
I don't use a desktop environment, so I'll cancel my Dropbox subscription. It's a good moment to move to an european storage provider I suppose.
- WJW 1y ago
  I hear Koofr is pretty decent.
  - emigre 1y ago
    I have been thinking about Hetzer with rsync for a while.
    - aboardRat4 1y ago
      With Syncthing?
    - WJW 1y ago
      Ah, the HN classic experience.
      - emigre 1y ago
        Hahah... True...
    - blueflow 1y ago
      I did that, switching from Dropbox to Hetzner. I'm quite satisfied. My workflow is: Upload/backup often, Download only manually to continue working on the thing from another machine. When you use the SSH port 23 instead of 22 you can use the regular authorized_keys mechanism for authentication.
  - emigre 1y ago
    I know filen.io as well.
- GlacierFox 1y ago
  I recommend pCloud. Been using them for years.
bravetraveler 1y ago
Everything old is new again: https://askubuntu.com/questions/821061/dropbox-appindicator-menu-broken-in-gnome-flashback https://askubuntu.com/questions/821061/dropbox-appindicator-... Should your setup need it, might be able to hack support through env vars. Innovation, everyone.
aboardRat4 1y ago
What's the news? System tray has been with us since Windows 95
- dayvigo 1y ago
  One has to be deliberately obtuse to pretend to not see how ridiculous it is to make having a third-party application that shows little icons in the corner of the screen a hard requirement for a cloud file sync application. I use Linux and don't have a taskbar, a topbar, a sysbar, nor anything similar. I've never seen the need for one when I can manage my windows in other ways and have more screen real estate available. What does that have to do with syncing my files?
  - alias_neo 1y ago
    Perhaps people like you (and I) are not the target audience. I've always felt Dropbox was more of an "typical user" (as opposed to power user) file sync; I used it some years ago but never really liked it, I roll my own now. I wonder whether Dropbox looked at some stats and realised that many of their users are on beginner-friendly distros/desktops and that such a requirement would help (them) more than it would hurt (users).
  - Lvl999Noob 1y ago
    It's a requirement for the GUI. The CLI still works without any requirements. If I understood things correctly. I don't have a linux machine on hand and don't use dropbox anyways.
- Longhanks 1y ago
  The Gnome desktop considers systray icons useless and by default does not ship or support any systray. If I understand the article correctly, the Dropbox client can no longer run on defsult Gnome desktops.
  - cruzcampo 1y ago
    To be fair, Gnome has made some questionable UX decisions - including this one.
thom 1y ago
This doesn't seem like a big deal. They use what appears to be a widely supported library for their tray icon, and if you don't want that: "The Dropbox app can also run in headless mode, once you meet the essential system requirements [64 bit, supported filesystem, Glibc 2.27+]. This runs without a graphical user interface. You can install the app, then control Dropbox using the Linux Command Line Interface (CLI)."
- mbreese 1y ago
  Agreed. This is clearly listed as required for the “full desktop experience”. If you don’t want a tray icon, you can use headless mode.
Kiboneu 1y ago
Time to get an FTP account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- dsego 1y ago
  At least you won't loose folders, it's become a meme (1). My wife told me that at her office they had important folders just disappear in dropbox, luckily they keep copies. (1) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/F2Sl7cMKAdQ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/F2Sl7cMKAdQ
- palata 1y ago
  Or restic with pretty much any cloud provider.
- impish9208 1y ago
  Poor guy is never going to live that comment down, is he?
cynicalsecurity 1y ago
Dropbox is scanning every file users upload. You can lose your whole paid account in a moment of seconds with years of work because they didn't like something. Their response: you can sue us in an American court, good luck. Using Dropbox, you need to have a backup of your data outside of it which pretty much negates the whole aspect of using it in the first place. Moved to Nextcloud and never felt better.
choffee 1y ago
Gnome dropped status icon support as they think it's more consistent for the user to have a window for interacting with the application and do notifications via the notifications system. I can see how people like a "dropbox" icon, especially Dropbox, as it makes them stand out but also I can see how it does not fit with the Gnome idea of consistency. I used to be conditioned to using certain apps via their status icon as that was the only way to interact with them but as a long time user of Gnome I don't miss them now and use apps like syncthing-gtk via the app and notifications just fine. So for me, if I was a dropbox user, this would feel like a step backwards. https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f)Guidelines.html https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f... https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f)FAQ.html https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f...
- cruzcampo 1y ago
  I really dislike the idea of having to have a window for everything I want to interact with. It feels cluttered and messy - not everything needs to have a whole damn window imo. Too bad, because I like a lot of the rest of the Gnome UI. But this pattern is the wrong way to go imo. With syncthing-gtk, how do you quickly pause/continue sync for example? Do you need to open the whole damn thing just to do one simple action?
Cloudef 1y ago
It's kinda sad how much "linux desktop" relies on GTK. I have my beef with dbus as well, but I wonder if you could do the indicator icons by only using the dbus protocol.
hkchad 1y ago
I finally go so fed up with drop box, every time I login more and more popups trying to get me to upgrade, etc. It was the final push to just use my NAS Software to self host my files. In the past it wasn't as reliable as DropBox but with hardware now and Tailscale its much easier and much better experience.

30 points by butz 1y ago

butz 1y ago

Some interesting news from Dropbox app this morning: "Your desktop environment doesn't support the Dropbox tray icon. Starting May 27, 2025, Dropbox updates will require App Indicator support. To continue using the tray, update your environment." Only Unity and KDE Plasma desktop environments are supported, others, e.g. GNOME, XFCE, MATE will require installing an extension or plugin.

eru 1y ago
Interesting. So if I wanted to use dropbox without a desktop environment, I'd need to fake a tray, so it can pretend to put an icon in there? (I normally use XMonad, and it's very far from a complete desktop environment. It's only a fairly minimal window manager.)
- sakjur 1y ago
  There seems to be a headless mode with lower requirements (scroll to the bottom and expand the Q about headless). This is for the ”full desktop experience”.
  - eru 1y ago
    Oh, that makes sense. Thanks!
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
throwaway314155 1y ago
I'm never going to understand why desktop environments don't support app indicators. In particular GNOME, which is meant to be accessible to a broader audience. This was the reason I switched to KDE Plasma, which is excellent these days.
- Longhanks 1y ago
  In what way is Gnome meant to be accessible to a broader audience? They clearly do not give that impression; a broader audience would be interested in tray icons, desktop icons, theming support — ideas they clearly reject.
  - throwaway314155 1y ago
    I mean, with such a bad-faith read of what I said; you'd have to be right. We are in agreement. No need to twist words about to make it seem like we aren't.
- rkangel 1y ago
  If I look at my Windows system tray, it's full of random crap that I never look at and never need to. Windows has to have functionality to automatically hide icons you don't interact with. I can see why Gnome has decided just to do away with the concept.

teekert 1y ago

Honestly it's the first thing I install on Gnome. It's just annoying that it's not on by default and I don't understand what the devs have against it. I use the Tailscale, Nextcloud, ProtonVPN and Solaar indicators. I could understand if they "rethought" how indicators work, but why make everyone jump through the hoop of installing an extension? (At least that is how it is on Arch and NixOS, Ubuntu may be different). Other than this, I absolutely love Gnome, I feel 0 need to tweak (other than before mentioned), some nicer tiling would be nice thought ;) Also: Requiring an App Indicator seems a bit harsh on the more minimal DEs. Are there any apps that are like a window but with your indicators or something?

Sander_Marechal 1y ago
I like the "Forge" extension for tiling: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4481/forge/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4481/forge/
seba_dos1 1y ago
> Are there any apps that are like a window but with your indicators or something? Yes, and the API isn't very complex so you could easily write your own indicator host if you wanted to anyway.

emigre 1y ago

I don't use a desktop environment, so I'll cancel my Dropbox subscription. It's a good moment to move to an european storage provider I suppose.

WJW 1y ago
I hear Koofr is pretty decent.
- emigre 1y ago
  I have been thinking about Hetzer with rsync for a while.
  - aboardRat4 1y ago
    With Syncthing?
  - WJW 1y ago
    Ah, the HN classic experience.
    - emigre 1y ago
      Hahah... True...
  - blueflow 1y ago
    I did that, switching from Dropbox to Hetzner. I'm quite satisfied. My workflow is: Upload/backup often, Download only manually to continue working on the thing from another machine. When you use the SSH port 23 instead of 22 you can use the regular authorized_keys mechanism for authentication.
- emigre 1y ago
  I know filen.io as well.
GlacierFox 1y ago
I recommend pCloud. Been using them for years.

bravetraveler 1y ago

Everything old is new again: https://askubuntu.com/questions/821061/dropbox-appindicator-menu-broken-in-gnome-flashback https://askubuntu.com/questions/821061/dropbox-appindicator-... Should your setup need it, might be able to hack support through env vars. Innovation, everyone.

aboardRat4 1y ago

What's the news? System tray has been with us since Windows 95

dayvigo 1y ago
One has to be deliberately obtuse to pretend to not see how ridiculous it is to make having a third-party application that shows little icons in the corner of the screen a hard requirement for a cloud file sync application. I use Linux and don't have a taskbar, a topbar, a sysbar, nor anything similar. I've never seen the need for one when I can manage my windows in other ways and have more screen real estate available. What does that have to do with syncing my files?
- alias_neo 1y ago
  Perhaps people like you (and I) are not the target audience. I've always felt Dropbox was more of an "typical user" (as opposed to power user) file sync; I used it some years ago but never really liked it, I roll my own now. I wonder whether Dropbox looked at some stats and realised that many of their users are on beginner-friendly distros/desktops and that such a requirement would help (them) more than it would hurt (users).
- Lvl999Noob 1y ago
  It's a requirement for the GUI. The CLI still works without any requirements. If I understood things correctly. I don't have a linux machine on hand and don't use dropbox anyways.
Longhanks 1y ago
The Gnome desktop considers systray icons useless and by default does not ship or support any systray. If I understand the article correctly, the Dropbox client can no longer run on defsult Gnome desktops.
- cruzcampo 1y ago
  To be fair, Gnome has made some questionable UX decisions - including this one.

thom 1y ago

This doesn't seem like a big deal. They use what appears to be a widely supported library for their tray icon, and if you don't want that: "The Dropbox app can also run in headless mode, once you meet the essential system requirements [64 bit, supported filesystem, Glibc 2.27+]. This runs without a graphical user interface. You can install the app, then control Dropbox using the Linux Command Line Interface (CLI)."

mbreese 1y ago
Agreed. This is clearly listed as required for the “full desktop experience”. If you don’t want a tray icon, you can use headless mode.

Kiboneu 1y ago

Time to get an FTP account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

dsego 1y ago
At least you won't loose folders, it's become a meme (1). My wife told me that at her office they had important folders just disappear in dropbox, luckily they keep copies. (1) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/F2Sl7cMKAdQ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/F2Sl7cMKAdQ
palata 1y ago
Or restic with pretty much any cloud provider.
impish9208 1y ago
Poor guy is never going to live that comment down, is he?

cynicalsecurity 1y ago

Dropbox is scanning every file users upload. You can lose your whole paid account in a moment of seconds with years of work because they didn't like something. Their response: you can sue us in an American court, good luck. Using Dropbox, you need to have a backup of your data outside of it which pretty much negates the whole aspect of using it in the first place. Moved to Nextcloud and never felt better.

choffee 1y ago

Gnome dropped status icon support as they think it's more consistent for the user to have a window for interacting with the application and do notifications via the notifications system. I can see how people like a "dropbox" icon, especially Dropbox, as it makes them stand out but also I can see how it does not fit with the Gnome idea of consistency. I used to be conditioned to using certain apps via their status icon as that was the only way to interact with them but as a long time user of Gnome I don't miss them now and use apps like syncthing-gtk via the app and notifications just fine. So for me, if I was a dropbox user, this would feel like a step backwards. https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f)Guidelines.html https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f... https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f)FAQ.html https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives(2f)StatusIconMigration(2f...

cruzcampo 1y ago
I really dislike the idea of having to have a window for everything I want to interact with. It feels cluttered and messy - not everything needs to have a whole damn window imo. Too bad, because I like a lot of the rest of the Gnome UI. But this pattern is the wrong way to go imo. With syncthing-gtk, how do you quickly pause/continue sync for example? Do you need to open the whole damn thing just to do one simple action?

Cloudef 1y ago

It's kinda sad how much "linux desktop" relies on GTK. I have my beef with dbus as well, but I wonder if you could do the indicator icons by only using the dbus protocol.

hkchad 1y ago

I finally go so fed up with drop box, every time I login more and more popups trying to get me to upgrade, etc. It was the final push to just use my NAS Software to self host my files. In the past it wasn't as reliable as DropBox but with hardware now and Tailscale its much easier and much better experience.