One of the apps I recently encouraged pastors to use in my post “the apps of a pastor” was Dropbox. If you’ve never used Dropbox before, you should definitely sign up for an account on their website, and then checkout some of my tips on how to utilize this app.
Sign-up promotions
New users get a standard of 2gb of FREE storage with Dropbox, but what’s great is that they offer little steps you can complete to get even more free storage. Sometimes it’s something like downloading their app, or being a referral for new users (free or paid) such as THIS LINK HERE. Every little bit helps, and if you’re only wanting it for a few things, you’ll never need to actually upgrade your account. Personally, I’ve always utilized their offers and my account can currently go up to 10.2gb for FREE, which is awesome! Many of the offers will popup as you sign up, and you can get your own personal referral link HERE.
Shared folders
Our church tax guy likes to share a dropbox folder for some of our paperwork that we share and reference. Dropbox is great for this since we can each upload and edit documents so that we both have the most recent version. This tool could be used for collaborative files, such as a website redesign, event, or special promotion where there are many pictures, and files that are being worked on/used by multiple people. You can share a folder by clicking on the “share” tab on the left when logged into dropbox, OR you can go to THIS LINK.
Sharing individual files
What’s great about being able to share an individual file is that the recipient doesn’t even have to have Dropbox! All you have to do is click the “share” button on the file you want to share when in the web browser. You can also see every file you currently have “shared” (available through a specific link) so you can choose to unshare files that should be made private again, or delete old files that you don’t need anymore. I’ve used this to share pictures or files with people inside of our church, or completed graphics with clients that are too big to send over email.
App/Setting Sync
One of the reasons Dropbox became such a hit was that they became integrated with many applications in order to sync information and settings across multiple devices. For example, my Text Expander snippets are synced to my phone and computer through Dropbox, as well as my passwords saved inside of 1Password. in addition, my drafts actions and launch center pro settings are backed up to Dropbox. They’ve made syncing and small backups extremely easy so you should definitely check out if applications you use utilize Dropbox as a syncing option.
I hope this helps you dive into one of the most useful productivity apps there is. If you have something you’d like to add, or questions you have about Dropbox, I’d love to hear them in the comments below!