# Anyone ever use Dropbox? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 15, 2011, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402 "2011-02-15T02:03:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![shellofmyformerself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@shellofmyformerself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shellofmyformerself)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/1 "2011-02-15T02:03:50Z")
I’m taking an online class and one of my group members wants us all to download/use Dropbox for collaborating on group papers. I don’t like to download programs off the internet unless I know they are safe. Has anyone ever used it before? Is it safe to download/install on my computer? ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/2 "2011-02-15T02:10:19Z")
I have some friends who share music and stuff using Dropbox. It’s legit. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/3 "2011-02-15T02:14:55Z")
I’ve used Dropbox with various collaborators with no apparent problems. I previously used LiveSync from Windows (which was earlier called FolderShare). I switched because LiveSync was no longer usable with XP. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/4 "2011-02-15T02:18:57Z")
It’s very legit, and very awesome. I can easily sync files between multiple computers, my phone, and my tablet. It’s easier than a flash drive for smaller files, because you don’t have to remember to bring it with you, and as said, will work with smartphones (well, Android phones at least, probably not sure about iOS or Blackberry) and tablets (again, I only know for sure it will work on Windows and Android ones.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/5 "2011-02-15T03:07:20Z")
Yes, a terrific resource for having files you can access from multiple computers. However, I’m not sure it would be the best way to collaborate on a group paper, since I’m not sure what would happen if more than one of you worked on the paper at the same time and then saved back to the Dropbox. It might be smarter to use Google Documents or something that has a way of handling the check-out/check-in problem. ---
**Author:** ![fighting\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@fighting\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fighting_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/6 "2011-02-15T03:12:38Z")
Yes my whole company uses Dropbox - it’s our corporate standard for file sharing. Totally legit and, by the way, an excellent program. ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/7 "2011-02-15T03:35:25Z")
Also, you can use Dropbox without even downloading anything. I recently started using it for certain important files and application data after years of managing everything myself with batch scripts and whatnot. It’s really sweet. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/8 "2011-02-15T03:48:18Z")
I’ve used dropbox for photos I wanted to share with various people. It works fine, but I suspect Microsoft Office Live or Google Documents would be better for a collaboration project. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/9 "2011-02-15T04:03:38Z")
I’ve been using Dropbox to sync folders between computers, and it works great for that. I haven’t tried using the sharing features though. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/10 "2011-02-15T04:06:27Z")
I love it for moving documents from my laptop to my iPad. Haven’t used it for collaboration, so I can’t comment on that. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/11 "2011-02-15T04:21:35Z")
Sibs and I use it to share information. I wouldn’t use it to transfer/share personal identifying information (SS#, credit card #'s, etc.), but for non-sensitive info, this is easier than email for sharing potentially large files and providing all group members with one central repository for info. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/12 "2011-02-15T06:59:17Z")
My eve online corp directors use it - we are a heavy industry corp and use excel spreadsheets and other documents are stored and accessed in dropbox. If 2 people are working in the exact same file at the same time, you will get a file name like Conflicting Jita Cap Parts costs (Cuncannon’s copy) so you can see that there are 2 different versions. If you want to make sure you are all constantly identical just make sure that you are not both in the same file at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/13 "2011-02-15T07:26:59Z")
I read about it on New York Times Tech section or somewhere similarly trustworthy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/14 "2011-02-15T10:17:20Z")
I did a presentation for some DoD types in December. I wasn’t allowed to carry a flash drive into the facility where the meeting was held, so they had me upload my PowerPoint to a Dropbox folder beforehand. It’s legit. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/15 "2011-02-15T11:53:58Z")
I use it as an effortless online backup (limited to 2GB I think, for the free version, so I don’t keep my audio or video in the designated Dropbox folders), and also if you want to move to another computer it’s a piece of cake to have all your documents locally. Just install Dropbox and leave it running for a while in the background. It has rudimentary versioning, and I have heard that some small development teams use it as a poor man’s version control system. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/16 "2011-02-15T12:31:55Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I did a presentation for some DoD types in December. I wasn’t allowed to carry a flash drive into the facility where the meeting was held, so they had me upload my PowerPoint to a Dropbox folder beforehand. It’s legit. You can’t bring in a flash drive, but they let you access the internet and download files? Brilliant! No wonder DoD has cost issues. ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/17 "2011-02-15T14:03:18Z")
There’s a Dropbox app for the iPhone, yes. I have Dropbox on my home computer, my work computer and my iPhone for exciting, top-secret, very important documents like my food diary, to-do list and spending diary. 🙂 I love being able to open the same document at work and quickly update it. If you use the iPhone app Plain Text, and work in, er, plain text docs, you can edit docs on the iPhone itself. Plain Text creates and saves its documents in a folder in your Dropbox, if you link your Dropbox to the Plain Text app. I haven’t played with longer documents that way, but it certainly works for smaller documents. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/18 "2011-02-15T15:48:42Z")
I just started using drop box last week to transfer files between a server farm I use and my work computer. Works great. But I have some questions for anybody who has more experience. 1. Can I create more than one drop box location? I’d like to have a personal space that I could use to share with family and friends but I also need a work space. It looks like Dropbox only lets you manage one drop box per computer. 2. If I can only use one location can I password protect only part of it? I’m using the free level of Dropbox (2 GB) but thinking of going to a pay level. If I can figure out some kind of partitioning it would increase my chances of going to pay level. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/19 "2011-02-15T17:20:02Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > I just started using drop box last week to transfer files between a server farm I use and my work computer. Works great. > > But I have some questions for anybody who has more experience. > > 1. Can I create more than one drop box location? I’d like to have a personal space that I could use to share with family and friends but I also need a work space. > It looks like Dropbox only lets you manage one drop box per computer. > > 2. If I can only use one location can I password protect only part of it? > > I’m using the free level of Dropbox (2 GB) but thinking of going to a pay level. If I can figure out some kind of partitioning it would increase my chances of going to pay level. You can only have one DropBox, but you can create and share multiple folders. In my case, I share files with five or six clients. Each of them has their own separate DropBox, and we share just a specified folder with each of them. We name those “Client sharing with Company” so that it’s obvious who owns what. This way, you share folders rather than giving people the password to your DropBox itself. One advantage is that DropBox will give you an extra 250 MB per person you refer, so there’s a good incentive to have them set up their own accounts. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402/20 "2011-02-15T17:25:55Z")
I use DropBox to sync files between work and home. It’s a good product - it works, is non-intrusive and just does its work in the background. A couple of annoyances - it cannot sync files which are “in use”, such as Word documents, and it cannot sync files outside of the DropBox folder (I was trying to sync Civilization save files…) Anyway got a recommendation for those? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-use-dropbox/571402.md?page=2)