Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better, Third Edition

Hack 67: Access Your Most Important Files Anywhere with Dropbox

Level Beginner

Platform All

Cost Free

Between workplace computers, laptops, desktops, and smartphones, you no longer live in a one-computer world. For most people, it’s not uncommon to work from at least two different computers during the course of a day. But when you jump from one computer to another, you still need access to the latest version of your most important files — whether it’s an important PowerPoint file for a big presentation at work, a new website you’re working on in your spare time, your todo.txt file, or the next chapter of your novel.

Carrying those important documents on a USB thumb drive used to be the most painless way to ensure you didn’t end up with multiple versions of a document spread across different computers, but a clever application called Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) makes it easier than ever to access your most important files anywhere, without creating duplicates or lugging around an external USB drive.

What Dropbox Does

Dropbox is a web service and free application (for Windows, Mac, and Linux) that instantaneously backs up and synchronizes files over the Internet to any computer on which you install the Dropbox client. When you first create an account and run the application on a computer, it generates a Dropbox folder on your hard drive (C:\Users\adam\My Dropbox on Windows; ~/Dropbox on Mac).

The Dropbox application runs in the background, constantly monitoring the Dropbox folder. ...