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How we use Dropbox: Sheena
We’re back again with another dive into how we, Dropboxers, use Dropbox. This time we have the ever wonderful, social media master, code queen, Sheena! And we can add family file manager to this ever-growing list! I’m from a large Irish family, which means I have tons of cousins, aunts and uncles, and of course my wonderful grandparents. As the eldest cousin on my mother’s side, it generally falls to me to keep the cousins in line, and to gather the best gossip for my Grandmother! About 6 years ago my Grandmother mentioned that she felt she was missing out, as all of her grandchildren would share their best photos on social media, and she didn’t get to see them. That year I created the first Christmas Family Calendar. It was created using simple calendar creation websites, of which there are tons. I first got the pictures by looking at the family’s Facebook profiles and choosing lovely pics from holidays, parties and events throughout the year that my Grandparents would not have seen. Throughout the years, many of us have stopped updating Facebook as often, and some have stopped using social media altogether, so I needed a new way to gather the photos. This is when Dropbox came in! Three years ago, I created a File Request for the calendar photos, sent the link to the whole family… and that’s it. The photo’s simply rolled in throughout the year. Every so often I would send a reminder to add their best pics using the file request. By the end of the year I had more than enough photos, many that were never seen before as they were just stored in one of our phones until that point. This year, since we hadn’t been able to see each other as much as usual, I created the Christmas Family Calendar for my Grandparents as normal, and then as a special bonus I was able to send the full collection of photos to the whole family as a digital memory book for the year. Family pixelated to protect identities. Group photos taken prior to Covid-19 restrictions. Thanks Sheena! I might have to steal this for myself… How do you use Dropbox to share family memories?Tell us how you use Dropbox!
We have shared a lot of stories about how we use Dropbox, from using Dropbox to plan a wedding to organizing and planning a project, and now we want to focus on you and how you use it! So, to start, we would love to hear about how, and why, you started to use Dropbox. Whether it was to make sure your photos were safe, or to scan and save your receipts, or to work on a group project, we want to hear about it! Leave your stories in the comments, we want to learn from you - the more we know about how you use Dropbox, the more we can share tips and tricks that make sense for you. Looking forward to seeing your comments below!Edit Photos and PDFs with Dropbox
Want to hear about one of the handiest Dropbox features I use regularly? Check out how easy it is to upload, edit, send, and sign PDFs in one place. No technical wizardry, no back-and-forth file conversions, and no additional software to install. PDF editing features let you add text and more Not all PDFs are ready to go, there's usually some info you need to add or edit, and now, editing them is as easy as click, click, click. There are tools on our PDF editing feature so you can do more without changing programs. Within Dropbox, you can: Add text to documents: Insert descriptions, dates, notes etc., anywhere on a PDF and modify text font, color, size, and emphasis Page zoom: Adjust the page view for easier navigation These features are useful for managing work-related and personal documents. Our own team makes the most of editing PDFs to organize and consolidate receipts at home. Learn how to get started editing PDFs now. Edit PDFs on-the-go Need to make changes when you'er away from your desk? No worries, you can edit PDFs directly on your iPhone or Android device. Edit PDFs on iOS: Add text or a signature to PDFs on your iPhone with the Dropbox mobile app. Edit PDFs on Android: The Dropbox smartphone app makes it easy to edit PDFs on your Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel, or any other Android device. Work from wherever you are, without needing to switch between devices or apps to get things done. Automatically add watermarks to multiple files No one likes to have their work passed off as someone else’s - and now you can make sure it doesn’t happen to you with a few simple steps. Save time, ensure confidentiality, and protect your brand by applying a watermark automation to a new or existing folder. Then, every PDF and image added to the folder will be automatically watermarked. We’re big fans of automations that truly make life easier, and this one makes us very happy! To create an automation and learn more about watermarking, visit our automations page. I’d love to know how you make the most of these PDF editing features - tell us below!Exciting news — we’ve launched the new Sync & Storage Dashboard in the Dropbox desktop app!
This dashboard makes it easier than ever to keep your files organized and your computer running smoothly. With just a click, you can: Get a real-time view of your sync status Quickly spot and resolve any syncing issues Monitor and manage how much disk space your Dropbox files are using Adjust your selective sync and storage preferences To open the dashboard, click the Dropbox icon in your taskbar (Windows) or menu bar (Mac), then select your avatar and choose Sync & storage. We’re excited for you to try it out! Please let us know your thoughts and how we can make it even better!How we use Dropbox: Youcef Captures the moment
We love to share stories of how our Dropboxer colleagues use Dropbox. Whether you’re using Dropbox for project management or to organize photos, it’s always handy to share tips and advice. We all have slightly different roles, and everybody has different preferences when it comes to workflows. You might have seen YoucefDropbox on the Dropbox Community before, but we’re his biggest fans and he is a Dropbox Capture expert so I asked him to share some info on how he uses Dropbox. How I use Dropbox Capture in my day to day work I use Dropbox Capture often to explain things quickly to my team and ensure everyone is on the same page. Capture has many useful features, like creating GIFs in no time or adding markup while recording a video. But there is one that I particularly love that many don't know about yet, so check out my capture below to discover it. We love to hear about useful little tips like this, they so easily become part of our daily routines and save a lot of busy work. Do you have any of those helpful little tips to share? Leave it in the comments below! And if you’re new to the tool, discover how to get started with Dropbox Capture in our simple guide.Learn how to manage your research with Dropbox
We try to make sure that Dropbox works the way our customers want it to, and a big part of that is research! We are really lucky to have some champion researchers on our team, and I picked her brain about how she uses Dropbox to keep all her research and results in order. But, I want to point out that you guys are also the experts, so if you want to add to our research, let us know in the comments below. How to organize research with Dropbox folder management: Share folders with the right people early on so they all have access to the content Add relevant tags to folders Include a clear naming hierarchy so content is easy to find When it comes to research management, folder management has to be on point - it’s never just for me to view. The documentation has to make sense to anyone picking it up. That means it has to be findable, accessible and clear. That means from day one on a project, I have to ensure that I am sharing with the right people, I tag my folders, my naming hierarchy is clear. There is a user experience in even sharing the research. This also makes it easy to keep documentation - research plan, discussion guide, research report - is all organised and logically laid out. This ensures that I am never a roadblock - for a while I was just directing people to docs, as opposed to spending my time really getting into the research and interrogating the results and actions. When I joined, there was a big new project taking off and I could start the new folder hierarchy but I think we all know that people will still want to be spoon fed the results a little bit, so there are a few ways to make sure people get into the right docs and see those results. From sharing updates in emails, tagging relevant people into the right sections of the documents or even adding to-dos for people. Saving recordings from research is much easier on Dropbox, we use a research tool that saves the videos down, so being able to download these makes it possible for whole teams to access the files, not just those with accounts on that tool. Let’s do some research Let’s imagine that Kim was doing some research about the Dropbox Community. Now, step one would be to ask you lovely people to answer these questions in the comments below (which we would love for you to do!) but for the sake of the hypothetical, let’s imagine that Kim created a survey to find out: What industries Dropbox Community members work in? Which Dropbox features do you use the most often? Why are you active on the Dropbox Community right now? What other tools do you use alongside Dropbox? What kind of content would you like to see us share on the Community forums? In this scenario Kim gathers all of the info from the surveys, and then adds the results to a folder that is clearly labelled, working with a naming hierarchy that works with the Community team, so something like: Community research survey 2023. She tags the folder with Community, industry, features, and support. Then she sends an invite link to our team, and even goes one step further and tags each of us in the relevant sections to our projects. The team then comes back with notes, thoughts and comments, and this can totally open up new ideas and discussions and it means that the results are not just a static thing in a doc, we figure out how we can take that research and do something good with it. I might be a little bit of a data nerd but I love this. I have been surprised by research sometimes and had it change how we think about the Dropbox Community, and I love that we can make changes to reflect how you, our Community members, actually want to access the forums. And again, the easiest way of doing research is to ask a question and get an answer so you: is there anything you would like us to look into with some research eyes right now? Tell us below and we will keep Kim posted!Dropbox Basic: Let's Maximize Space
Try to think of your Dropbox cloud storage as a well organized bedroom. In order to maximize space, you want to be thoughtful about how you use each closet and section of the room. With your Dropbox Basic account you have 2 GB of storage. With this amount of storage its imperative that you are thoughtful about the files you save to your Dropbox account. If you know more about files sizes, you can make more informed decisions about which files you upload. In this article you will get a better understanding of how to maximize space with your Basic Dropbox account. What are the average file sizes of media we use daily? Images Many of use Dropbox to upload images, which come in several formats and sizes. These formats affect the amount of space the image may take up. Photos from our computers are usually in formats such as JPEG and PNG. This is great because these images often don’t take up as much space as larger format files. Image formatting (as in the space it takes up, not the dimensions of the photo itself) is based on resolution and quality of the pictures. I know this because I uploaded each type of image to my Dropbox Account and saw that the quality and difference in resolution affected the overall size. Larger pictures, such as raw camera footage (TIFF and BMP), should be converted to JPEG before uploading to your dropbox account. The rationale here is so that you save about 1000kB of space. Documents Documents overall take up the least amount of space. With your Basic account, you can save about 25,000 pages of word documents, depending on file size. If you use documents for planning and collaboration, I suggest you try using Dropbox Paper. Paper documents take up very little space on Dropbox. I would suggest placing homework assignments and projects that you may always need access to on your Dropbox account. I am currently working on creating my dissertation and have it saved on Dropbox - this document is super important to me and I need to ensure that I can access it from all of my devices. Media Files Video is the largest file format but that doesn’t mean you can’t store video files in your Dropbox Basic account. To make the video more compact you can use an online compressor, or, like I’ve done in the past, edit the videos to make them shorter. I have also experimented with changing the format of the video to reduce file size. Remember to treat your Dropbox like your well organized bedroom. You want to shrink larger items if you can and want to organize items that you know do not take up much space. I use my Dropbox account to hold my important documents, vacation photos and files from Dropbox Paper. Now that I know how much space each file takes up, I do my best to maximize my space. Let’s maximize our space by using the tips and tricks above - and if you have any other space saving tips, share them in the comments below!
