Dropbox: File Synching and Back Up Made Easy

If you work in several computers regularly, keeping your important files in sync can be difficult. While emailing files to yourself does the trick, it’s hardly a perfect solution (what about that 1GB file?), and it’s not very practical. Well, Dropbox does just that, and does it very well!

Dropbox instantaneously backs up and syncs your files over the internet and to any computer. After you install the application, it will create a My Dropbox folder on your hard drive. Any file placed inside that folder will automatically be synced and monitored for changes, and each time a change is saved, it backs up and syncs the file again. Even better, Dropbox does revision history, so if you accidentally saved or deleted a file a file, Dropbox can recover any previous version.

Dropbox is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and is totally free. You get 2GB of storage space, but if you need more there’s a Pro package with 50GB of storage for $9.99 per month or $99.00 per year. Another way to get more space is using the referral system – for every friend you refer, both you and your friend get 250MB of extra storage.

When the software is installed, two special folders are created: Photos and Public. The Photos folder is a quick and easy way to create photo albums. Just create a folder within the Photos folder, drop your pictures inside and these folders will be viewable in a gallery on the web interface. Galleries also have a unique web address that you can share with others (non-Dropbox users too) through email, instant messaging, or blogs.

If you need to share some files with non-Dropbox users you just have to drop files into your Public folder. Any files in here will be given a link that you can send to others in emails, IMs, blogs, etc. without requiring people to sign up for Dropbox.

It’s also possible to collaboratively share files with other people using shared folders. Members of a shared folder can add, edit and delete the contents within and won’t have access to any of your files outside of that folder. And any changes made to the shared folder are instantly sent to every member of that folder. The only downside of this (or rather, the thing that could use an improvement), is that you can’t control access at the file level: inside a shared folder, all members have the same “power” to do whatever they want.

That was just the basic, out-of-the-box, stuff. Now let me tell you about some clever uses of Dropbox.

You can use Dropbox to sync all your passwords, by using it with KeePass or 1Password (these are password managers to solve the “I have to memorize a lot of passwords” problem).

If you’re a BitTorrent user, you can use Dropbox to start BitTorrent downloads remotely.

Want to access Dropbox from literally every computer? The check out DropboxPortable, which allows using Dropbox from a USB drive, making it possible to use it even in computers where you don’t have the necessary permission to install the Dropbox client, like the company computer, for example.

And finally, if you don’t fell like moving all the folders you want synchronized into the My Dropbox folder, there’s a way to sync files and folders that live anywhere in your hard drive.

I’ve only just started using Dropbox and I couldn’t be more happy about it. It’s because it’s so easy to use, and it just works! I’ve tested it with both small and large files and it worked perfectly and quite fast. Will be somewhat cool to start BitTorrent downloads from work, and I’ll no longer have problems with transferring that big file that doesn’t fit in an email attachment.

So, what are you waiting for to sign up?