I don’t use Dropbox as backup, I have other resources for that. But I keep a copy (not the only copy, the original is kept on my iMac) of some of my most-used files in Dropbox so I can access them from my iMac, iPhone, or iPad. I don’t need to share the files w/anyone, they are for my own use, no matter what device I’m using.
Rarely do I make any changes to a file w/my iPhone or iPad, on those devices, I generally access the files merely to read them. For example, at a doctor’s office, it’s easy to check my list of medications on my iPhone. If I make a shopping list & forget to bring it w/me, I can access it from the store to see what I need. Just simple things.
Not happy w/the way Dropbox is evolving lately, looking for another alternative. Any suggestions? Yes, I do have access to iCloud but would like something else.
Thank you.
iCloud Drive is literally the most reliable in my opinion, but Sync.com (which is end-to-end encrypted) is ok (occasionally the iOS app has had issues, but not quite so much lately), Proton Drive is ok(I haven’t used it for a while because the Desktop app never allowed optimized syncing of files - choosing which files you didn’t want to download to your desktop - but otherwise it was good). OneDrive works, but I think Microsoft can see everything they want to.
But I would strongly suggest iCloud Drive for someone who uses MacOS, iOS and ipadOS. 
Maybe that observation is from an earlier iteration, I can right-click on files and folders in my Proton Drive folder and mark for Online-only. My entire Proton Drive is online only but I can select to have certain files always on my Mac.
Proton has better privacy than Dropbox, files are encrypted on upload. I’m trialing it this year, I have a 3Tb plan with a whole bunch of other Proton offerings, looking to consolidate my online storage, meetings, VPN, and move my personal email away from GMail to their far more private offerings.
Ok, that’s good. I waited through a whole year until my annual subscription was due and they never added the option, so it must have been in the last six to nine months.
It worked on mobile oses, I just never could get it to work on the Mac.
I have used Resilio Sync for many years.
It’s built on the Bittorrent protocol, and is entirely peer-to-peer. There’s no cloud or server involved, and files are encrypted in transit, so privacy is preserved. The free tier has no restriction on number of devices or synchronized folders. They don’t care about the size of what you’re syncing since the only storage and data transfer are your own. It’s cross-platform: Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux. I believe that the free tier has all features but is only for personal use; the paid tier gives you a license to use it commercially.
It’s been decades since I worked with Dropbox, but I think Resilio is somewhat harder to set up initially. Also, since there is no cloud, there is no “cloud only” option though you could easily simulate same if you had an old machine with a net connection and adequate storage that you could leave online.
Altho I use iCloud Drive, my wife achieves similar functionality to what you’re describing simply by embedding the documents in Notes. (Which of course still uses iCloud, albeit in a different manner.)
Thank you. I’ve been hesitant about iCloud drive as my understanding is everything should be in iCloud drive if you’re using it. At least that’s how it was when it started, if you were using iCloud drive, all files should be in it. iCloud drive has my email, contacts, & calendar but haven’t added any files to it as I never wanted it to have all my files, made finding things in Finder more difficult. Maybe things have changed over the past several years, I’ll look into it.
Thanks, will look into Proton drive as well.
Do you have any specific criteria that you are looking for?
Nearly all of the major cloud file syncing services now use the same underlying technology to manage syncing on Apple platforms, aka the Apple File Provider API. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be much difference any more in terms of basic syncing capability or reliability.
The differences between the major syncing services now are more about policy (like Proton’s approach to privacy), added features in their apps, and general user interface issues.
I use Notes quite a bit but not sure what you mean by embedding the documents in Notes. I know I can copy the contents of a document into Notes but is there a way to actually copy files into Notes? If so, that would be great as it’s easy to use Notes on the Mac, iPhone, & iPad. Would appreciate learning more about this as an option.
Google Drive is fine—I use it heavily for Finger Lakes Runners Club files—but I’d recommend that you stick with iCloud Drive. No need to look outside the Apple ecosystem if it’s purely for personal use. If you turn on Desktop & Documents Folder Syncing then everything in those two folders is always available on all your devices.
That’s what I’m wanting to avoid. I hate that setup: I want all my files downloaded, not in the cloud. The cloud is just to manage syncing and for backup, like the original Dropbox.
I’ve been a paid Dropbox user forever, but I haven’t used the bloated, awful, official Dropbox client in years. I use Maelstral, and the recent news that it will stop working eventually has me rethinking Dropbox and wanting to try other cloud clients. But any that use the Apple File Provider API is a show-stopper. I just want an ordinary folder on my Macs that reliably sync between all machines. That’s it.
Thanks for your thoughts. I keep away from all things Google, especially after finishing Joe Kissell’s course yesterday, Take Control Live: Taming Big Tech.
I might just start using iCloud Drive but it will be a bit more complicated for me. I don’t really use the Documents folder; I have folders created for different subjects; they “live” in my Home folder, not in the Documents folder. Just a quirk of mine from when I started using a Mac 20+ yrs ago; I’m a very organized person & the individual folders made more sense to me than the Documents folder. I’m a victim of my own organization. 
No specific criteria, just being able to access files from the Mac & all devices. But security & privacy are becoming bigger issues by the day, & not as certain Dropbox is as secure as it used to be. Don’t mean for me personally, referring to people in general for security & privacy issues.
I just learned about Maestral thru Joe Kissell’s course, Take Control Live: Taming Big Tech. But Joe mentioned yesterday that it’s going away so I haven’t looked into it; don’t want to start w/something new that’s not going to be around.
I’ve also been a paid Dropbox user for years but only as a way to have some of my Mac files available to view on my iPhone & iPad. Now that Dropbox’s security/privacy seems to be more of an issue, I’m less comfortable w/it & trying to find alternatives.
Really getting tired of jumping thru hoops to protect my privacy. Doubt that anyone’s going to specifically come after my “stuff” but it shouldn’t be so difficult to keep private things private.
Can you (or the others with similar concerns) elaborate on what those concerns are? Other than the forced relocation of the DropBox folder (and that was Apple’s doing, not theirs) I haven’t noticed any changes that I’m concerned bout. I keep everything local on macOS and certain subfolders local on iOS and iPadOS and turned off the backup photos and the Dropbox tags and the like but that was a long time ago.
If there re things to be concerned about maybe I need to reevaluate.
Then look at sync.com. As far as I can tell on my Mac, they are still not using Apple’s file provider APIs.
Actually, I had the opposite problem, now that I think of it: there was no reliable way to force something in Proton Drive to be downloaded always. So, if I added some files on another Mac, I wanted my MBA to download anything new, and Proton Drive didn’t have an option to download everything on the cloud without manual intervention, and there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be made cloud-only later.
Among the sync providers using Apple’s file provider APIs, iCloud Drive has this option, OneDrive (IIRC) has this option.
If they’re all on the same network you could use SyncThing. I use this to keep a folder of files synced between my computers and the college supplied laptop. You can have multiple instances. All downloaded, no cloud involved. There’s no iOS app but… there’s another app Möbius sync you can use. A bit klutzier, you have to manually trigger a sync. I’ve not bothered with it.