Someone, it may have been Irene, mentioned Dropbox a few days ago.
I have often wondered how many here use it and what do you find it most useful for?
I don't want to load mine up so that too much space is used with things I probably don't need to store there.
Thanks, Marnie.

I use it as well as GOOGLE drive, its great, I store and share lots of things.
I use drop box for photos and graphic files I create.

My workplace uses Googledrive, everything is digitalised now, we hardly have any issues with it.
its liberating to get rid of all the paper.
Vanessa

I use shared boxes for easily sharing large files like photos with friends and family, but for me the most use I get out of it is when I travel. Although I take paper copies of things like tickets with me (I want to know I have them if I need them without worrying about a connection), Dropbox is great for backups of all of that plus things like my travel insurance policy and a scanned copy of my passport. I can access them on my smartphone if I need them. It's also good for offsite backups of important documents in case of fire/destruction at home.

I really don't use Dropbox to it's full extent. My Accountant sends docs via Dropbox, which is great. My main purpose to have Dropbox however is for all the photos that I take on my phone - and I take a lot of photos believe me. Dropbox used to automatically download any photo taken - that has stopped now, and that could be me. I just haven't had time to look into it properly. But even with not working 'properly' I take my photos, and then on the phone click on Dropbox when I am within wireless range at home, or have free net access elsewhere. Then when I do get home, all my photos are transferred to the Dropbox folder on my pc. I then transfer them to the photos we have stored in the 'cloud' via an external hard drive,and that is it. Then I delete photos from dropbox and my phone, so I have enough space (supposedly in the world as it should be, in Irene's head space, but that doesn't always happen). It is so quick and easy

I'm a big fan of dropbox and I use it in much the same way as CarolynC, on my travels. Once I'm home from my holiday, I delete the tickets, insurance policies and other documents that were necessary for the trip. I gave up on cameras when I got sand in the lens of my last one mid-way through a holiday, taking photos on a windy beach, and I've relied on my smartphone camera ever since. It means one thing less to carry around and as all the pictures are uploaded to DropBox automatically I don't have to worry about losing them should I lose my phone (though I very rarely lose anything, touch wood!)

Edited to say I forgot the most important bit: I also have Dropbox on my laptop and everything automatically gets uploaded onto that, too. I have 5gb of space on Dropbox and so far the thousands of photos I have taken barely make a dent in it, so I don't bother with deleting things yet, despite having the copies on the hardrive of my laptop. I also have an external hard drive that backs up my laptop every week, so I'm well covered for any mishaps.

I have also got all my photos saved on Google Drive, but I've stopped using that because I understand that whatever you put up there, you have agreed that Google can use publicly wherever and whenever they like, and if you delete something off Google drive, it deletes it from all other (connected) locations too. So I've stopped the backup process but have left what I originally transferred.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2016 11:27PM by Lorna.

I have numerous dropbox accounts linked to different email addresses - work/ personal/ small home business etc.

I dont pay for them - just use the free accounts. I use them to share files with clients or to store photos - I find it doesn't take me long to fill them up though! I guess thats how you end up paying for more storage

Thanks Vanessa, Carolyn, Irene, Lorna and Ingrid, you've been so helpful. I was thinking how handy it will be with with those important details you need when travelling.
I don't often take photos with my phone, it is a smart phone but is the smaller type and I often find the image I am trying to focus on is hard to see in sunlight but I can see that it is a wonderful system to help free up your space, at least until you are in a situation to do whatever else with them.
I am thinking of getting a new camera and am a bit torn between that and just buying a larger size smart phone. I suppose it is horses for courses.

Marnie, re the phone vs camera, it depends how serious you are about photography. Smartphones take pretty good pictures these days, but one thing they don't have is a "real" zoom function. They have digital zoom, but that's like cutting a smaller picture out of a larger one and results in decreased quality in the photo. There's already one phone with optical zoom like a camera on the market, so I'm sure they will all have it soon, but they don't yet. Also, I believe smartphones aren't as good in low light as cameras. (I still use a camera and when travelling have been amazed at what my camera has been able to capture in low light situations, so that's a big thing for me.) If you're not bothered about either a zoom function or low light, though, you can easily get away with carrying just a phone.

Thanks Carolyn, those are almost the same words my husband used. He once belonged to a photographic club, doing his own developing etc...a really good thing, as we now have the legacy of lots of monochrome photos of when our children were growing up. It may sound archaic but I prefer to have a camera for most of my photographs only using the phone as such when my camera is nowhere near.
I think I will probably wait until the cost of a phone with the optical zoom comes down in price but that doesn't mean it will be my chosen device for photography.
I wouldn't say I am a really good photographer but I still like to have an image of what is going on around me.