Sync via Dropbox no longer practical (3 computers only with free account)

[Thomas_U]

Hi,

 

Alfred sync is the last function I use DropBox for. But DB has now limited the use to 3 computers only for the free account. I have 4 Macs and beta- and other testing partitions on some of them.

 

Is it possible to make iCloud sync available for Alfred in the near future? iCloud sync works fine with other applications like Notebooks.app, NetNewsWire.app, Cardhop.app and more.

[iandol]

Not to detract from your main question, but there is a non-official dropbox client that uses the official public API and therefore doesn't suffer any device limits: https://maestral.app

[deanishe]

1 hour ago, Thomas_U said:

Is it possible to make iCloud sync available for Alfred in the near future? iCloud sync works fine with other applications like Notebooks.app, NetNewsWire.app, Cardhop.app and more.

In a word, no. Those apps all function in a fundamentally different way to Alfred. They manage their own data (there's no way to add anything to NetNewsWire except via the app), whereas Alfred watches the filesystem. iCloud works well enough for apps like the ones you mention that can use CloudKit, but Alfred can't.
 

Alfred would have to use iCloud's file syncing, and that is still not reliable enough, which is why Alfred's help strongly advises against using iCloud. It has lost a lot of people's data.

[vitor]

On 7/8/2021 at 4:19 PM, iandol said:

there is a non-official dropbox client that uses the official public API and therefore doesn't suffer any device limits: https://maestral.app

 

Note for whoever lands here: Maestral doesn’t get file attributes, so downloading with it may (non-permanently) break your Workflows by making scripts non-executable. Make a backup before you sync with it.

[deanishe]

8 hours ago, vitor said:

may (non-permanently) break your Workflows by making scripts non-executable

 

Can confirm.

 

I tried it out, and it made a complete mess of my Alfred preferences. Like you say, it unset the executable bit on all the scripts, but the weird thing is, it changed all the perms from 755 to 655, leaving the files executable for everyone but me. Loads of duplicates, too. Took me ages to fix all the stuff it broke.