Why Do You Need the New Dropbox Beta If You Have a Mac M1
Dropbox caused quite a stir last year when they said they would not work on the Apple Silicon (M1) Mac-optimized Dropbox client until they saw demand for it. in the first half of 2022. This year, the M1 app is officially available as a beta version that anyone can download.
What’s so special about updating an app for a new platform where even older apps work just as well? The problem is how Dropbox works on these new Macs. Or rather, how badly it works on the new M1 Macs.
There have been so many widespread reports of performance and battery life issues that our official advice was to switch from Dropbox to something that worked better natively on a Mac .
And although we still insist on it, not everyone can easily escape the ship. If you have a long-term plan with Dropbox or are part of a Dropbox business plan, you’ll have to make do with the app. Thankfully, this app is now at least optimized for Apple Silicon.
How to improve Dropbox on Mac M1 with beta
To download the Dropbox beta, go to the Dropbox forum page and click on the ” Standard Installer ” link under Mac OS X ( here’s the direct download link ). This will download a 900kb dmg file. Once installed, you will be able to download and install the latest version of the Dropbox client. If you’re already using Dropbox, this installer will replace your existing version.
Beta versions should be installed with some care, early reports of them seem promising. Based on preliminary tests done by MacStories , the new optimized M1 app has dropped RAM usage from a whopping 4GB to a much better 645MB.
After installing the new Dropbox app, you can independently verify that it is the Apple Silicon version. Click the Apple button in the menu bar and go to About This Mac . Here, click on ” System Reports ” and navigate to the ” Applications ” section in the sidebar. Find the ” Dropbox ” app, it should say ” Apple Silicon ” next to it.
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