If you have been following this MTE blog, you will know that we are great lovers of Dropbox. It is easily the best syncing and file storage software out there and we just can’t stop showing our love for it. Previously, we have show you how to make the most out of your Dropbox. This time round, we will show you 5 more ways to utilize your Dropbox.
1. Sharing music
Sharing music on Dropbox is not only a breeze, but one of the coolest features the service is capable of offering. All you need to do is create a Music folder, then share it with your friends. You can all add music to the folder that you think each other would like, and sample any of it that you think they might be right about. Of course, music with DRM can present a problem, but aside from those files, its generally smooth sailing!
2. Installing Android apps
As most of our consistent readers know, I’m a heavy Android user, and am always installing the latest and greatest apps. Part of doing this though, is installing apps that don’t just come from the Android Market. This means downloading apps from the internet and installing them on my phone. Dropbox is an awesome way to do this. From any computer, you can navigate to a site and download an app, then just drag the .apk (Android install package) to your Dropbox, and open Dropbox on your Android device. Then, just open the .apk file, and install! All without wasting valuable internal storage space on your mobile device!
3. Sharing photos
One of Dropbox’s coolest and most highly touted features is its photo sharing ability, and frankly, it really is cool. Just drag photos from either your computer’s file browser or photo management program into your Dropbox’s Photos folder, and watch as Dropbox automatically turns these folders into photo albums. Then, share the albums with friends! This means not only can they view the photos, but they can download high-res versions, which you can’t do through perennial picture sharing powerhouse Facebook.
4. Use it as a multi-platform “clipboard”
One great thing about Dropbox is its speed. Uploads and download are limited only by your connection speed, and they start almost instantly. This is awesome for “copying” and “pasting” files from one computer to another. I commonly throw images back and forth between computers, as I’m working on articles, or projects for work. Just copy and paste something into Dropbox, then copy and paste out of it on another computer. One extra step than copy and paste, and far less than, say, emailing things as attachments.
5. Home security
One geeky tricked I’ve picked up is this one: Use your Dropbox to keep abreast of happenings at your home while you’re away. Here’s how it works:
- Connect a motion sensor camera to your computer.
- Whenever the camera detects motion, it takes video.
- Set the camera software to save the video files, which should be short enough in length and low enough in resolution as to not be too huge of a file size, in your Dropbox folder after downloading the software.
Now, you can just log in to your Dropbox, and check for videos. If there are videos, you know there has been motion at your house, and you can watch them to find out what’s going on!
Conclusion
The fact is, Dropbox has a million uses… It’s truly limited only by our imaginations, and I hope to do another article like this in the future, with another list of great uses for the software. But for the time being, these are some super cool ways to use software that is actually incredibly useful just in its most basic form.
Remember to hit up the comment below with any other unique ideas you have for using Dropbox, in addition to any other similar software you may know about that could compete with it, or any of the features I’ve listed!
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I have a few Dropbox referrals left on my account if anyone would like one and you'll get an extra 250 megs this way. Use the link below when you sign up.
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTI1NDc3ODY5
Have a good one!
-TK
Thanks for the tip TK! If I didn't have an account already I'd definitely click through, but maybe one of our readers will!
Excellent and informative article! I am a more than satisfied Dropbox user, but frankly my use of it has been limited to moving and sharing music and photos. I never would have thought of most of those uses, especially the security camera thing! Could one apply that principle to a stolen laptop's webcam, remotely? Just a thought…
Hey DSChef! I like the security camera too…And with the right software, that's actually an awesome idea. You would just need something that could run in the background and take a picture at a certain time interval whenever the computer is running, then have it store that file in your Dropbox folder. Good thinking, I'll look into it, because I honestly like that idea for my own laptop. Wish my iPad had a webcam so I could do the same thing with it!
dropbox gr8 application in cloud storgae- i like it becoause of its simplicity and flexibility
Great idea for the camera! Colin, did you manage to get it working – what software did you use?
Hey Mike,
Check out a super detailed use-case here:
http://www.labnol.org/software/remote-desktop-monitoring-with-dropbox/13696/
I haven’t gone through the steps on mine, mostly because I generally keep my laptop with me at all times, and my home desktop has no webcam! Let me know how it goes though if you do follow through!
Dropbox is good but i have started using a free Sugarsync account for backing up game saves because you can choose which folders to back up. You can then have them restored on another computer in the same directory location as the original. Which makes it really easy to get backups when gaming on a laptop and then a computer or vice verse. Sort of like Steam cloud but for anything!
I actually used to use Sugarsync but found Dropbox a little simpler. For backups, Sugarsync may be the way to go though.