With its latest beta, Dropbox is finally bringing support for Apple’s M1 processor. What was one of the more oft-requested features turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword for the service. That’s because, before the end of 2021, it sure sounded like Dropbox had no intention of actually supporting Apple silicon at all.
To be fair, it was a bit of a rollercoaster. What started as a declaration that Dropbox had no plans to natively support Apple’s M-series processor(s), soon turned into a declaration that Dropbox had actually been working on support for a while. Just like that, we went from no planned support at all, to support being worked on for quite some time and with a planned launch in early 2022.
And here we are, with just under two weeks under 2022’s belt, and the wheel is turning. As first noted by 9to5Mac, the latest beta –which is now publicly available– grants full, native support for Apple silicon. A manager at Dropbox confirmed the new beta’s functionality.
If you’re a Dropbox customer and want to try it out, you can do so from this forum post.
It’s worth noting that, technically speaking, Dropbox has worked on an M1-equipped Mac right out of the gate. But that’s because of Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation year. That’s how it works now in the most recent public build, too, of course. But that should change here sooner rather than later, now that Dropbox is widely testing the beta build.
While it might have taken a bit of a turbulent route, it’s just good to see that Dropbox is rolling towards official support for M-series processors.