Earlier this year, we reported that Dropbox was beta testing a client that natively supports Apple silicon. The cloud storage service has announced that it finally supports all M1 Macs natively. Here’s a look at everything that has changed.
Dropbox announced the support for M1 Macs in a tweet. It says that native support brings a host of advantages such as improved performance and efficiency so you can enjoy a seamless experience on your Mac. It clarifies that you won’t need to re-download or re-install Dropbox. The updated version will make its way to you automatically.
Dropbox now natively supports Macs with Apple silicon (M1). All users with these devices will receive the native version of Dropbox automatically. More info here: https://t.co/axiHKQNFiK
— Dropbox Support (@DropboxSupport) March 3, 2022
The brief support document linked in the tweet also explains how you could check if you’re running the native app or not. Here’s how to go about it:
Step 1: Press Command + Space on your Mac keyboard to open Spotlight Search. In the search window, type “Activity Monitor.”
Step 2: A drop-down menu should appear. In it, click on Activity Monitor.
Step 3: Select the CPU tab on the top of the window, locate Dropbox under the Process Name section, and find its entry in the column labeled Kind. If the Kind entry for Dropbox reads “Apple,” you’re running the updated native client for M1 Macs.
Dropbox’s transition to native support for the M1 Macs eliminates the need for a Rosetta emulator. The emulated version of Dropbox was inefficient and rapidly drained the battery on MacBooks. This transition could be a step in the right direction for the service since it hasn’t had the best relationship with its Apple users. Dropbox was known to be a resource-hungry application even when idle. To make matters worse, it was infamously slow.
Do you think Dropbox will be able to salvage its reputation and deliver a faster, better-optimized experience to Mac users with the updated native app? Tell us in the comments section.
