Todo.txt for Android and iOS Stopped Syncing to Dropbox
Todo.txt for Android and iOS users noticed something bad happen last week: the apps stopped syncing to Dropbox. It’s incredibly frustrating when a tool you rely on every day stops working inexplicably.
I wanted to update the community about what happened, what we’re doing to fix it, and what you can do in the meantime.
What happened:
On September 28th, Dropbox took their v1 API endpoints offline, the endpoints Todo.txt for Android and iOS use to sync your todo.txt and done.txt files.
This deprecation was not a surprise; Dropbox announced it months ago. But unfortunately, the Todo.txt apps were not updated in time and not prepared to handle this switch-off.
This Dropbox update rendered the Todo.txt apps unable to sync your files to Dropbox. This means that unless you only use the apps to manage your todo.txt file offline, the app is now at a greatly reduced functionality.
Updating the apps to use the new version of the Dropbox API is not a trivial amount of work. The Todo.txt apps haven’t been updated since 2014, and a lot has changed since then. It will require a significant amount of effort to even get the apps to build at all in their current outdated state, using recent versions of Android Studio and Xcode.
What we’re doing now:
To prevent new users from purchasing a mostly broken app, I’ve pulled the Todo.txt apps from the Play Store, iTunes Store, and Amazon Appstore.
A community effort has begun to update the apps to make them functional again. There’s no timeline on when that work will be complete. If you are able, please pitch in! Here’s the ticket for the iOS app and for the Android app.
What you can do in the meantime:
Check out alternatives, like Simpletask for Android and Todotxt+ for iOS.
Request a refund. The Todo.txt apps cost about two dollars in the various app stores, and I used that small stream of revenue to help defray the costs of running the project. However, if you purchased the app and want a refund due to this situation with Dropbox, you can make a request for me to send you $2 via PayPal (where I am ginatrapani at gmail) or Venmo. When you do, let me know which app you’re using.
I apologize the inconvenience this has caused Todo.txt users. Todo.txt is a project volunteers work on in their free time, and we weren’t able to find the people with the free time and skills to do the work necessary to update the apps in time. I look forward to contributing to the community-led work on updating these apps.
