Dropbox and Google are ending their document editing partnership

Starting next month, it will no longer be possible to edit Google files in Dropbox. In its place are shortcuts or conversion to Microsoft Office.

Since 2018, Dropbox has maintained a close partnership with Google and Workspace, then G Suite. This makes it possible to edit files in Google Drive via Dropbox. This allowed users to change documents and spreadsheets without leaving the Dropbox platform. This opportunity is now ending.

‘Improvement’

In an email to users, Dropbox called this change a good thing: “Dropbox is committed to making your life easier and more streamlined to work with your files. To achieve this, Google files in Dropbox are replaced with documents in Google Drive.”

In reality, one useful feature is disappearing, but Dropbox offers a band-aid via shortcuts to Drive. If you want to keep your documents in the Google ecosystem, you need to migrate them to Drive within a month. Otherwise, Dropbox will automatically convert the files to Microsoft Office format. Under no circumstances will any information be lost.

unclear reason

The motivation behind the change is unclear. It seems unlikely that Google is the driving force as files are converted to Microsoft Office by unused customers. Of course, if you miss the deadline, you can still upload your files to Drive, where they will be converted back to Google’s file format. However, there is a possibility that the layout will change.