Changelog

Currently shipping 1.2.0.6 (5adc762, 2026-09-06T05:53:04Z).

Kept per minor line (1.0, 1.1), because that is what gets a GitHub release. Build numbers move on every push and are not worth an entry.

The user-facing summary of a release is README.md, which is what the website renders. This file is the record for whoever is working on the plugin.

1.2

Knows when you don't need it.

Dropbox on macOS has two sync engines, and they behave in opposite ways. On the newer File Provider engine, Lightroom fetches online-only files by itself — opening a photo in Loupe, Develop or Export pulls it down on demand — so the problem this plugin solves doesn't happen there at all.

The plugin detects which engine you're on and says so as the first line of the Plug-in Manager panel.
On File Provider it refuses to run and explains why, rather than doing nothing and reporting success. Previously it would have said "Everything is already local" — both of its detection stages fail there independently, so no work was ever queued. A confident false success is worse than any error.
It asks you not to buy a licence on a machine that doesn't need one — beside the Buy button, not only in the documentation.

This plugin is for the older sync engine, where an online-only file is 0 bytes on disk and Lightroom reports it missing instead of opening it. File Provider requires the Dropbox folder to live under ~/Library/CloudStorage/, so anyone keeping it elsewhere — an external drive, a path everything else references — stays on the older engine.

The trial starts when it first hydrates something, not when you install.

If it turns out the plugin doesn't apply to your setup, or you never get round to trying it, none of the 90 days is spent. The panel says so before the clock starts.

Diagnose Hydration…

Reports the sync engine, before the placeholder check — because the engine changes what that check means.
Recognises File Provider's dataless files. It used to report "no Dropbox xattrs at all - is this file actually inside the Dropbox folder?", which told people their file wasn't in Dropbox when it plainly was.

1.1

Photos a run cannot deal with are now findable.

Photos that need attention are collected rather than counted. ⚠️ Missing from disk for files Lightroom cannot find, ☁️ Hydration failed for files still online-only after a run. Previously the dialog said "3 photo(s) missing" and there was no way to discover which three.
The collections reconcile themselves. Photos that are fine again are removed, and a collection left empty is deleted. Staleness is judged per photo by testing the file, so a run over one folder clears a photo fixed in another.
Always behind a confirmation, and nothing but those two collections is touched.

Logs are kept.

One log per run under runs/, no longer overwritten, so a run can be compared against the one before it. Last 25 kept.
Each log carries a header with the timestamp and ok/failed/total counts.
Open Log and Show in Finder on the run-finished dialog; the same in Plug-in Manager, alongside Copy to Desktop.

Dialogs.

Text is selectable, so an error can be pasted into a bug report.
A Copy button on every dialog, in the accessory row beside OK.
Failures say why, rather than reporting that something failed.

Renamed. The bundle is PrZ3HydrateDropbox.lrplugin and archives match. LrToolkitIdentifier deliberately did not change — preferences and licences are bound to it.

Fixed.

Four separate bugs from wrapping yielding SDK calls in pcall, which Lua 5.1 cannot do. Each presented as a silent no-op or a reason-less failure.
Catalog writes had no timeout parameters, so they failed instantly whenever Lightroom was mid-write instead of waiting.
CI could publish two different builds under one version number, and silently skipped a deliberate hand-made release.

1.0

First working release. Hydration proven in real use, the Finder automation removed, install and update working end to end.

Hydrates Dropbox online-only files via a coordinated read — no Finder, no Accessibility, no permissions, nothing on screen.
Three commands: selected photos, entire collection or folder, and a single-file diagnostic.
Placeholder detection by the com.dropbox.placeholder extended attribute.
Every file verified on disk before being reported as success; a route that claims failure is re-checked before it is recorded as one.
Self-update from the Plug-in Manager.
Licensing: 90-day trial, then a soft cap, with signed keys.