Synchronization is stuck, Dropbox won't open or displays an error message. We save files from Dropbox Constant access to data from any device
We continue to study the Dropbox service and in this article we will figure out how to work with shared files, how to provide access to your folders located in Dropbox, and how to provide other people with access to specific files.
There are two main options for sharing files and folders.
The first option implies that you send a link to some file that is in your Dropbox. Please note that this option is suitable for both people who have a Dropbox account and for people who do not have such an account.
The second option implies that you open access to a specific folder for collaboration. This folder can contain a common project on which you are working not alone, but as a team.
The folder can store any files, for example an Excel table, a Word document, video, photo, audio, etc.
What I especially like about Dropbox is that you can always undo changes other people have made to a file and restore one of its original versions.
The option to open access to a shared folder is only suitable for those people who have a Dropbox account.
Now let's take a closer look at both options and start by providing a link to download a file.
Let me remind you that after we place any file in our Dropbox folder located on the computer, this file is automatically uploaded to the Dropbox.com server in our account. Accordingly, other people will download the file to which we send them a link from the server, and not from your personal computer.
After the person to whom you sent the link to the file clicks on it, a browser window will open in front of them with the desired file. In our case, this is a video file:
Another nice thing about Dropbox is that you can view most common files directly in your browser without downloading the file to your computer. I don’t know about you, but this is very important for me, since I haven’t had enough free space on my computer for a long time.
Thus, you can view the file in the browser and if it is really needed, then only then can a person decide to download it to his computer.
Thus, in Dropbox you can watch videos, photos, pdf, word, text files with the txt extension.
If we need to download, then in the upper right corner there is a corresponding button for this purpose. As noted above, this button is active even if you do not have a Dropbox account or are not logged into your personal account:
If we click on the Download button, we will be offered two options:
- Direct download;
- Add to Dropbox.
Direct downloading is suitable for those people who do not have a Dropbox account. After clicking on this link, you will be asked to select a location on your computer and the file will be downloaded there.
When would it be useful to share files via Dropbox?
This is convenient when you need to transfer a large file, for example 1GB. Such a file will be difficult to send via email, but you can easily insert a link to this file into the email, which the recipient can either download or view in a browser.
How else can we pass a link to this file?
There is an even easier way when you don’t even have to log into your email to send a link to a friend or colleague. Dropbox has a special function for these purposes. To do this, in the line of the file we need, click on the chain icon at the end:
Then in the window that opens you will see a field in which you must enter the email of the person or group of people to whom you want to send a link to this file:
You can also attach some text to the message, such as an explanation of the link. Also from this window you can copy the link to this file to the clipboard in order to transfer it in some other way.
After sending the message, the user we need will receive an email with the following content:
Now we have discussed with you the option when we send a link to download or view a file to a person who does not have a Dropbox account.
What will happen if we send a link to a file in a similar way to a person who has an account in Dropbox?
A notification will pop up in this area:
By clicking on the bell icon in front of the user, a pop-up window will open where it will be said that such and such a user has shared such and such a file with you:
If he clicks on this message, a browser tab with a built-in video player will open in front of him (the example considers video transmission):
From here our user can also download this video to his computer, or place this file in his Dropbox folder.
How to share a Dropbox folder?
Now let's consider a situation where we need to share a specific folder in Dropbox.
To do this, select the desired folder in the Dropbox service and right-click on it. In the menu that opens, select Access Folder...
In a special checkbox we can allow or deny this user to provide access to our folder to other users.
As soon as you grant access to the folder to any other user, the appearance of this folder will change. An image of two men will appear on it:
Well, a new message will appear in the notifications of the person to whom you have granted access to the folder, where he will be asked to Accept access or deny:
After one of the users who has access to the shared folder makes any changes to one of the files, the following window will pop up in the notification window (in the tray) for all other users:
Also, in the Dropbox service we will see the status of the file, namely when it was last modified and by whom:
But what I like most is that we can always look at the history of changes to a given file and roll it back to any version we need. To do this, right-click on the selected file and select Previous versions in the menu that opens:
With all the convenience and opportunities provided, it is not always possible to upload files to the server from the computer or device with which we are currently working.
For example, we, through terrible hardships, reached the Internet in order to download a file ranging in size from several hundred megabytes to 30 megabytes (unfortunately, now files larger than this size can only be downloaded by purchasing a paid account on the service: from $4 to $10 - approx. from 04/07/2013). But to our great chagrin, the reception speed is very low, and the file will be downloaded only after a few hours for quite a long time. But we can’t wait that long, we need to go about our business, and not lay out the “kerchief” while waiting for it to load!
Fortunately, there is a solution! We can give the command to download this file directly from the Internet, without first downloading it to your computer. And our wonderful service will help us with this.
Linking Droplet URL to Dropbox
So, first of all, let's tell our Dropbox about our intentions to use URL Droplet. To do this you need to go to and click the link Login:
After this, the URL droplet installation dialog in Dropbox will open. Allow access using a button Allow:
It takes us back to urldroplet.com. Now we need to copy the link to the file that we want to upload to Dropbox...
... and paste it into the field on the cloud:
Press the button Save and we see a message in bourgeois, saying that the file has been successfully queued for downloading:
That's it. We are waiting for adequate time for processing and loading, during which we go about our business. The status of the operation can be tracked on the page by simply going to it and clicking the button Login, as we did earlier. The list of downloaded files will be presented under the cloud in the following form:
A blue line marks a file that is in the process of being downloaded. Red - successfully downloaded file.
As soon as we saw the message under the downloaded file Successful(successfully), you can go to Dropbox folder on your computer or into an account on the server and enjoy the result!
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Don’t be so quick to say, “I don’t need this” after just reading the title of this article. If you are the happy owner of any of Apple's iOS devices, and are also an active Internet user, then I am more than confident that this material will be useful for you. So, what is this article about? You have probably used file hosting services many times to transfer files to your friends or simply to store some personal data.
However, the obvious disadvantages of conventional file hosting services are the lack of convenient synchronization with computers and iOS devices.
The combination of Dropbox + iFile + iPhone (iPad, iPod Touch) will allow you to exercise full control over your personal data from anywhere in the world. You can easily store, upload, download, edit and share your files, both using a computer running Windows or Mac OS X, and from any iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch). And so, in order:
Dropbox is the most famous and popular service that allows you to store user data on remote servers (“cloud”) and share it with them via the Internet. Any file of your data can have a direct download link.
Install the Dropbox client on Windows, Mac, Linux or iOS devices.
2 . Download and install the Dropbox client on your computer, iPhone or iPad.
Free— a tariff plan that provides 2 GB of free space in the Dropbox cloud and allows you to increase cloud space up to 18 GB for attracting referrals. You will receive an additional 500 MB of space for each registration using your referral link or invitation.
Pro 50— a tariff plan that provides 50 GB of Dropbox cloud storage for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year and allows you to increase cloud space up to 82 GB for attracting referrals. You will receive an additional 1 GB of space for each registration using your referral link or invitation.
Pro 100— a tariff plan that provides 100 GB of Dropbox cloud storage for $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year and allows you to increase cloud space up to 132 GB for attracting referrals. You will receive an additional 1 GB of space for each registration using your referral link or invitation.
Team— a tariff plan for corporate clients, providing from 1 TB in the Dropbox cloud for 5 users for $795 per year, with the ability to add users. Each added user will increase the size of the corporate cloud by 200 GB for $125 per year.
5
. After installing the client, a special Dropbox folder will appear on your computer. When you open it, you will see the subfolders Public, Foto and others. You can delete or rename these folders as desired. You can see the same folders in the web interface of the Dropbox service by logging in to dropbox.com.
The operating principle of Dropbox is based on synchronization, i.e. If you place a file in any of the Dropbox folders on your computer, then this file will instantly begin to be copied to the “cloud” and will be available to you via the web interface from anywhere in the world.
Each Dropbox folder has an indicator that shows the user what processes are going on.
Files do not have storage periods, unlike most file hosting services.
7 . Congratulations! You have become a user of the very convenient cloud service Dropbox. You can use it to store important documents, music, videos, etc. Try the service yourself by creating a folder and placing several files in it.
How to download and upload files from/to Dropbox on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch using iFile program from Cydia?
1 . Jailbreak your iOS device. You can find detailed instructions in our section.
3 . Launch the iFile program and click on the Settings icon in the lower left corner of the program window.
4 . Click on "Link to Dropbox". And in the authorization window that opens, enter your registration e-mail and password.
5 . Click on the icon in the lower right corner of the program window.
6
. Click on the "+" icon.
7 . From the menu that appears, select Dropbox.
8 . A new tab will appear with a list of folders in your Dropbox account.
9
. Open the desired folder and select the desired file. When you click, the selected file will begin to download and you will be offered a list of applications with which you can open or edit it, of course, if they are available on your device.
You can download the entire contents of the folder from the site if both of the following statements are true:
- The total folder size is less than 20 GB
- There are no more than 10,000 files in the folder
To download the entire folder directly from the website:
- to the site site.
- Find the folder you need to download.
- Click on the icon … (ellipses) to the right of the folder name.
- Click Download.
Your browser will download the folder as a single zipped file (ZIP format). You can find this file in ZIP format in the folder where your browser usually downloads data (this is indicated in its settings). The file will be named the same as the folder itself, only at the end it will be added .zip.
To access the contents of a ZIP file, open it and unzip it.
Most operating systems are capable of unzipping ZIP files without requiring the installation of additional software. But if suddenly you cannot open the file, you can find an archiver program on the Internet.
Please note: If you have a Mac computer and you downloaded a ZIP file larger than 4 GB, the Archive Utility on MacOS may not be able to extract the contents of the ZIP file. If this happens, you will need to use another program or Terminal to extract the contents.
What should I do if instead of the “Download” button I see the “Open” button?
If you see a button Open instead of a button Download, this means the folder is already synced with your Dropbox folder on your computer. Click the button Open to open this folder on your computer.
Dropbox recently updated to version 1.4.20
The developers of the cloud service for synchronizing information Dropbox have released a new version of the program. The updated program version 1.4.20 corrects some shortcomings and omissions, in particular, the absence of an icon in the Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12 operating systems, as well as several other minor flaws.
You can download the latest version of the program. But the main feature of this update is support for selective file synchronization (Selective Sync). You can also now get public links to files and folders from other directories. Major updates to this program:
1. You can now synchronize files and folders selectively.
2. A new mechanism for assigning public access to files to dads.
3. Reduced memory consumption and increased program performance.
4. Stop and cancel synchronization.
5. Updated program settings menu.
6. Correction of errors in old versions.
AdditionSelective Sync
Dropbox's Selective Sync feature allows you to customize the folders you want to sync across your computers. You will find the function settings in the context menu in the “Preferences/Advanced/Selective Sync” section. Here you can select the folders that will be downloaded to your computer and synchronized.
New mechanism for making files and folders public
Another method for converting folders to public is the “Get Shareable Link” context menu item. In older versions of the program, you could make any folder publicly available to other users, or you could place the file in the “Public” directory and take a public link to it, through which it would become available to any user. But the second method was tied to only one directory and, using it, it was possible to obtain links to specific files, and not to all. A new method allows you to get a public link to any of your Dropbox folders.
You can now get a link that, when opened, will allow anyone to read the contents of the shared folder in the Dropbox web interface. You can cancel this action through the menu in your Dropbox account in the “Sharing/Linked Items” section. Dropbox's ease of use is the key to its popularity and millions of users. When working with this service on its website or on your computer, you do not need to worry about almost anything. Neither about its settings, nor about whether it is time to update it - everything is done in the background, and you only receive notifications about this or that action. Dropbox has clients for working with Windows, Linux, MAC, and can also be used to work with files on mobile devices - iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry.
We save traffic with
The Dropbox developers have made every effort to reduce the amount of information transferred. Using Dropbox can increase traffic, especially if the volume of files being synced is large. How does this happen? If changes are made to a file, Dropbox will only transfer the part of the file that has been changed. And this already saves your traffic and increases the transfer speed. The new LAN Sync feature will significantly speed up the synchronization of files and folders between your computers. As I already said, Dropbox simply copies these files over the local network. That is, even if you have a very slow Internet, you can still quickly update all the files in your Dropbox folder.
In the program settings, you can determine the maximum speed for downloading files or the speed of downloading them. This can be done in the program settings, in the “Bandwidth” item.
Unusual use of Dropbox
During the existence of the service, many ways to use it have been invented: from website hosting to synchronization of Skype, QIP and other email clients. To get this result, you need to specify in the settings of these programs that the message history will be stored in a folder that will be located in your main “Dropbox” folder. This must be done when installing programs. That is, if you want to synchronize already installed Skype, ICQ and other email clients, then simply reinstall them by changing the path to the specified folder. Also, your Dropbox will work great as an addition to your PC security system, which can be organized using your webcam and a program that will save pictures from the camera when motion is detected in the frame. If you specify the “Dropbox” folder as the folder for saving screenshots, you can remotely view pictures taken by the webcam and make some decisions about it.
Dropbox - Free Hosting with DropPages App
I have already talked about different ways to use the DropBox service, and mentioned non-standard ways to use this service. Therefore, next we will look at how Dropbox hosting is used for simple websites. This can be organized using the DropPages application. Log in to http://droppages.com/ using your Dropbox account.
The DropPages service was created recently, and the essence of its work is that with its help you can get a website at your site name.droppages.com, and the files of your new site will be located on the Dropbox service and, accordingly, in your folder on your computer.
This is not difficult to do. You must have a Dropbox account and have the Dropbox app installed on your PC. Next, go to the Dropbox folder and create a new folder in it with the name of your site “site_name.droppages.com”:
Then you need to make the folder public (right mouse button on the folder “Dropbox -> Share This Folder...”) with the server [email protected]
After a while you will receive a confirmation by email. After the letter, you can go to the address of your site and start working with it. That's all the work. How does this work? On Dropbox you could always create an html file, make it publicly available and get your own page. Your new site can be divided into folders “Content”, “Public” and “Templates”.
The “Content” folder contains the site content in .txt files. The “Public” folder contains css and js files. The Templates folder stores the HTML templates for your pages. There are several ready-made templates on the server at http://droppages.com/themes that are ready to use. At the moment there are three of them.
Updating your website account will allow you to synchronize up to 1 GB of data and create websites with any domain name. Once the update is complete (this may take a few minutes), you can begin working with the site or sites. Also at [email protected] You can contact the technical support of this service. This way, all your website files will be stored in the website folder on your computer, which will be synchronized with Dropbox. That is, your backups will always be available to you at any time. See how much easier it has become for you to manage your site - you don’t need to log into your FTP account, there is no need for a login and password, and you can almost always see how you work with the site. Here's an example of a very simple index.html file that you can create in one minute to test your site.
Effective use of the DropBox cloud service
DropBox, in addition to its main purpose - storing files, has many additional tools that make it much more efficient and convenient to use. And this while maintaining ease of use. Therefore, I recommend that you read all the materials in this series of articles - there will be a lot more interesting, but for now let’s look at a few DropBox features first, and you will find out what other uses this service has. Storing files online is the most convenient, in my opinion, and modern solution.
File hosting DropBox
As soon as you upload a file to the Dropbox folder on your PC, it is automatically placed in your account on the service. A novice user in a free account is assigned a virtual disk volume of 2 GB for use. By default, all information is transferred to your individual storage, and only you can reassign the path of their storage to other folders that you need. Or in folders that are created automatically along with “DropBox” - these are the “Photos” and “Public” folders. You can enter your “chest” from any computer or mobile device on the website, or if the program of the same name is installed on it. Using your web interface, you can rename and move files, you can create new and change old folders, delete temporarily, restore deleted files and delete them permanently. You can download your files one by one or in folders. The folders will be downloaded in zip archives. All changes you make will be reflected in the Dropbox folder on all your mobile devices and computers, accompanied by text notifications from the tray.
DropBox file hosting
If you have created a public folder and sent invitations to friends and acquaintances, then they have access to this folder and can use files together. The link to publish the file is in the context menu. To get it, right-click on the file and select “Share this folder...”. Please note - the link is direct, so another user of this public folder can not only download the file from this link, but also open it in their browser. For those users who do not have their own file hosting and use file sharing services, this is a good find. The service updates all files in the shared folder with invited participants in real time, while it saves all intermediate versions of files and remembers when and by whom changes were made to them. Users of a shared folder also have the ability to add comments directly while working - all notifications about them will be delivered by email. Of course, the composition of participants can be changed by the group administrator - the user who created the public folder.
DropBox – transfer large files
I experienced this problem myself - if the file is more than 1-1.5 gigabytes, then any, even a free file hosting service, has problems sending it. It even happens that after an hour of waiting, the download is simply reset. I don’t have such problems with Dropbox - even backup files weighing 8-10 GB are transferred in literally 15-20 minutes, and in the background, that is, your downloading does not bother you in any way. After a complete download, you will receive a message in the tray, and your new file in the “” folder will receive a green check mark instead of a blue icon. You can now get a share link for this file in the public folder.
DropBox – backup and file synchronization
Not taking advantage of the opportunity to connect your computers into a single network using Dropbox means ignoring all the capabilities of the service. After all, this is the whole point - you can work with the same files on all your connected computers or mobile applications, and you don’t have to worry about transferring files in other, less efficient ways. The Dropbox client controls all changes made in the local “Dropbox” folders of your PC, mobile phone, and on the server at the same time. As soon as a file is updated on one device, the same files are immediately updated on all your other computers. When you make changes to part of a file, only the changed parts are transferred, and not the entire file, so the transfer of information occurs very quickly. The program works with files in the background, and when synchronization ends, the file or folder is marked with a special checkmark in a green circle. By hovering the cursor over the Dropbox icon in the tray, you can see what is currently happening in the program - whether files are synchronized.
Recovering Deleted Files
All deleted files in Dropbox end up in the trash. They can be restored from the trash within a month. This condition is met for a free account. For paid users, there is no time limit for using the shopping cart. Also, any files can be deleted permanently. In the “Events” menu item on the service you can view the entire history of changes - when they were made. This feature also works for every 30 day change. You can revert to an earlier version of a file at any time. And another good feature is the function of subscribing to account news via RSS. This is very useful, since Dropbox often presents surprises in the form of some free functionality and add-ons.
DropBox media for your sites
Many users, especially bloggers and website owners, have problems uploading files in mp3 format so that users can listen to them online. And, by the way, by placing an audio player in swf format on your Dropbox hosting and having direct links to audio files at your disposal, you can make listening reliable, without brakes or interruptions.
Virtual USB and Dropbox
All information, all data, all programs and applications that can be launched from a USB storage device (flash drive) can also be launched from Dropbox. We all use DropBox in different ways - some use DropBox to store information and publish it on websites and forums. You can use DropBox in this way - save the settings and configuration of programs, in particular, your browsers, in order to be able to synchronize settings between your PC and mobile devices. Another good use is remote torrent downloading. For example, install the Dropbox program on your computers, share the folder and configure the program to automatically download files from this folder. Now you just need to save the torrent file to a public folder, and it will immediately start downloading. This method will save you a lot of time. There are also third-party applications like Airdropper that can expand Dropbox's capabilities.
