Exchanging files with Dropbox. Hi, everyone.
Leo Notenbom here for Askleo.com.
Dropbox is a powerful tool for sharing files and exchanging files.
We normally think of it as a great tool
to use if we have multiple computers and have the same files show up across all
of our devices, be it computers, PCs, Macs, or mobile devices or whatever.
But as it turns out,
Dropbox is also very good at sharing or exchanging files with other Dropbox users
and with people who've never used Dropbox at all.
There are three scenarios that I want to walk through that are all related
to sharing, but because they're all related to sharing and because they're all
a little bit different, they're done a little bit differently
using Dropbox, and that can get a little confusing.
The first one is basically you have a file in Dropbox and you want
to share it with someone else who doesn't necessarily have a Dropbox account.
The second is someone else who doesn't
necessarily have a Dropbox account wants to share some files with you.
Then third, two people who have Dropbox
accounts want to collaborate on some files to work on some things together.
The first scenario is actually fairly straightforward.
I'm going to fire up Windows File Explorer
and you can see I have Dropbox installed on this machine.
In fact, you can see the Dropbox icon in the notification area down here.
The Dropbox folder has some stuff in it, an example folder and an example document.
If I right click on the example
document, in Windows 10, this may be included in the menu that pops up.
In Windows 11, we need to actually click
on the Dropbox submenu e and click on Not Share.
That's something else. We'll talk about that here in a minute.
What we want to do is copy the Dropbox link.
What that has done is it's copied a link that will allow somebody else, anybody
else, to view the file that we've just mentioned.
You can then share that link however you like.
You can send them an email,
you can send them an instant message, whatever you want whatever.
To show you what it is they get,
I'm going to open an in private window here in Edge so that I'm not
automatically logged into anything and paste that link.
That's what it looks like.
It looks like long, complicated numbers and letters.
Now you'll notice that it immediately
says, Hey, do you want to create a Dropbox account?
You don't have to.
Just close this and then at the same time,
go ahead and accept or decline all the cookies.
The bottom line here, though,
is that what this person is now viewing is the document that we shared.
In this case, it's a Word document, a Doc X document
exampledocument.docx.
Dropbox knows how to show that contents of that file to us.
If it were an image,
if it were something else, most of the time, Dropbox will do the right thing.
Notice that all they can do is view the document.
They can't make any changes to it.
They can download it so they can make a copy of the document to their own PC,
or they can save a copy to their own Dropbox if they have one.
Again, I'm assuming they don't.
I'm assuming you're just wanting to share
a file that you happen to have in your Dropbox with someone else.
You can also do this to folders, so you can share a folder
and then the recipient will be able to view all of the contents of that folder.
Again, they won't be able to make any changes, but they can view.
Very handy for sharing things with others, maybe a collection of pictures.
Speaking of a collection of pictures,
what if somebody else has some pictures that they want to share with you?
They want to give you the files associated with those pictures.
That's a little different.
Unfortunately, to make this happen, we actually need to go to dropbox.
Com online.
Now, here I am in dropbox. Com.
I've already signed in to my free Dropbox account.
I'm going to create a new folder, mostly because it's a good way to manage
what other people might be uploading into your Dropbox account.
I will call this Uploads From L eo for moment.
It's only me and I'm not going to set up any automations.
Go back to all files
and you can see here that we have this new folder called Uploads From L eo.
I'm going to right click on it
and this time down in activities, click on request files.
That's what we're going to create here, a link that requests people upload files
and then places those files in this folder that we've just created.
A title makes some amount of sense.
This is what your recipients will see.
You can add a description if you want to.
Honestly, I've not yet found a good reason to do that.
Usually, you're already having
a conversation with whomever it is you're wanting to upload files.
This is a confirmation of where those files are going.
They're going in my Uploads From Leo folder.
There are a number of Pro options that honestly you don't necessarily need,
but this is the free account, so you can see all of the things you can't do.
We'll create this request.
Now, there are two ways of sharing this request with others.
You can either copy the link and
then get that link to them again, like before, through email,
through messenger, through whatever mechanism makes the most sense for you.
Or you can enter names and email addresses here.
It'll pick from your contacts or from wherever.
Dropbox will send an email to them with the request.
Personally, I just like copying.
Again, I copied the link to the clipboard.
I will craft my own email with my own
contacts saying, Hey, upload your files here.
What is it that they're going to see?
Well, it's actually fairly straightforward.
Once again,
I'm going to open an in private window in Edge so that I'm not signed
into Dropbox, and we'll just paste that link and go to it.
What it is is a drop target.
They can now drag and drop files onto
this, or they can, of course, use the Add files button to do
a traditional file open to go and get files that they might want to share.
I'm going to go to One Drive, and I think I have some art here, desktop art.
I'll just do this one.
It's a background image that I use on some of my machines.
It is a case where you need to add your
name and email address so that somebody knows where the pictures came from.
But again, this is your recipient.
These are the people who you have asked to upload files into your Dropbox account.
They hit Upload and boom, the file is uploaded.
It will show up in your Dropbox.
And as soon as it's finished uploading, we'll go look at that.
Now, I need to be clear here.
Your recipient no longer has access.
They don't have access to your Dropbox.
All they can do is upload files into it.
But once the files are uploaded, they have no control.
You do. It's in your Dropbox.
They have no access to your Dropbox.
We'll go ahead and close this. We'll say done on that.
We'll go back to all files.
Now if we take a look at the contents
of the Uploads From Leo folder, sure enough,
there's a file that was just uploaded by this random other person, Leo@ask Leo.
Com.
That's a great way to get one
or more or lots of files, folders, whatever it is that other people
who aren't necessarily using Dropbox want to share or transfer to you.
It shows up in your Dropbox account in your Dropbox folder.
In fact, if I now go to the Dropbox folder
on my machine, if I look at Uploads from Leo, the files there too.
It's been automatically synchronized
across all of the machines that are logged into this same Dropbox account.
That's getting files from someone else.
What if instead you want to work with someone?
Well, we don't need the web for this one right now.
We will take a look at our Dropbox account.
Here's my Dropbox folders.
This is all of what's in this particular Dropbox account.
I am going to use my example folder as my example.
I am going to share this example folder with someone else who has a Dropbox
account so that we can both work on the contents of this folder together.
We'll right click on the folder, Dropbox, again, click on Share.
Now, this is where you can do either of a couple of things.
You can share a link like we have before, or you can enter email addresses.
In this case, I'm going to go ahead and let Dropbox do the work for me.
Askleo.com
is who I'm going to share this link with.
This can edit is a very important thing to at least understand.
It can be can edit or can view. Collaboration.
When it comes to collaboration, can edit is the point.
You want both individuals who have access to this folder to work
on the contents of the folder at the same time.
That means they both need to be able to edit.
Now, I keep saying both.
Honestly, you can share with as many
people as you like, as long as they all have Dropbox accounts.
We're sharing with leo@askleo.
Com and that's it.
Now, I'm not going to show you what leo@askleo.
Com gets. He will get an invitation.
There are two important aspects of that invitation that are worth understanding.
One is it's an invitation.
Nothing happens until your recipient
actually accepts the invitation to be able to access that folder.
This is important because it prevents random people from basically
throwing random things and folders at your Dropbox account.
You need to accept the invitation to be able to access the folder.
The second is that accepting allows that person to access the folder at
dropbox.com online.
But it is not yet or not automatically made a part of their own Dropbox.
That's a separate step that they take called Add to Dropbox that will then
make the folder you've shared show up in their Dropbox.
Now in our case, I have an example folder with some contents in it,
and the person that I've shared it with, once they accept and add to their own
Dropbox, has that same folder with the same contents.
And as we both make changes
to the contents of that folder, those updates are automatically
synchronized between our two accounts and all of our machines.
That's what collaboration is really all about.
Now, there's one final caveat that I have
to throw out here when it comes to collaboration and sharing in this manner.
The size of what's in this shared folder
counts against each Dropbox account individually.
This currently is a free account.
It's limited to two gigabytes.
If I share with it a folder from a paid account that has more than two
gigabytes, well, then this account is instantly out of space.
The key take away there is simply that be aware of how much is in these shared
folders and understand that if you are sharing folders or anything
with users of free Dropbox accounts, you could
be blowing their Dropbox out of the water in terms of size.
The only solution, there are really only two solutions here.
One is don't put so much in that folder.
Make sure it is
manageable for whatever the other person is already using their Dropbox for.
Remember, they may not have a full two gigabytes available.
If they're using Dropbox themselves,
even with a free account, they may have stuff in there and may not
have the full space available for whatever it is you're attempting to share.
So manage what you're sharing appropriately.
If you can't, if you really do need to share the full
greater than 2 gigabytes or whatever it is, then the only real solution is
for the other person to upgrade to a paid account.
It will be up to you and them to negotiate whether or not that's a proper
solution for whatever it is you're attempting to do.
So I hope that helps understand a little bit of what's
available with Dropbox and the kinds of things you can do with it.
We have covered basically sharing files from your Dropbox to anyone, whether they
have Dropbox or not, accepting files into your Dropbox from anyone,
whether or not they have a Dropbox of their own, and finally collaborating
by sharing a Dropbox folder between multiple users so that you can all be
accessing and making changes to the content simultaneously.
I hope that helps.
For updates, for related links, for more pictures and explanations, visit ask
askleo.com/152795.
I'm Leo Notenboom.
This is Askleo.com.
Thanks for watching.