Declaring My Undying Love 💙 For Dropbox

Nerding around with computers since the 1990s, I've gone through my fair share of external storage solutions. Getting into recording around 2002 increased pressure on my backup system, and later, photography pushed it over the edge.

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I was that dude, who had the 2TB brick that replaced the 500GB slab a couple of years earlier, which replaced the two 120GB bricks a couple of years earlier, and so on. Turns out I've spent a fortune on external hard drives over the years, and let's not get into the time and effort involved in buying, selling, researching, transferring, etc.

A couple of years ago I started using the free version of Dropbox to host files for photography clients. Dropbox is a breeze to use.

If you haven't used it before, let me explain Dropbox briefly:

You install Dropbox on your computer and then the dedicated Dropbox folder on your computer is automatically backed up online. You can right-click on any file in this folder and copy the internet link, allowing you to paste it and share access to folders with the outside world. Very simple, very useful.

But Dropbox can go far beyond file sharing. I now use it as a cloud storage solution. One that is stupidly simple, very affordable, and puts my mind at ease without taking up space on my desk. I'm not lazy. I just like things to be easy, and I'm willing to pay for that luxury. Dropbox is something that makes my life a lot easier, for a small fee.

Below you can see what my computer desktop currently looks like. Notice the shortcut folders? Almost everything I do on my computer is in my Dropbox folder, so I simply use shortcuts from my desktop to access my most used folders; "my stuff", "photography", "audio", etc. When I make changes to these folders, it backs up all the data online. If I ever have a hard drive failure, I'll be able to get back up and running on any computer by simply installing Dropbox, signing in, and re-syncing. This is insanely convenient.

Below you can see an example of a folder with "contact sheets" for a client. These are collections of images which allow the client tho choose their favorite. If I right-click on the folder I can get the link to share with the client.

The link that I share (pasting from the clipboard) brings the client to a secret webpage where they can access the files, even being able to preview them, download them, or comment right there on the webpage.

So as a photographer, Dropbox has proven itself invaluable for both storage and file sharing. Considering how much I used to spend on hard drives, the annual fee for Dropbox makes it fantastic value as a replacement for bulky desktop hard drives and the associated work, risks, etc.

You can check out Dropbox price plans here. That's not an affiliate link by the way, I just genuinely love Dropbox and think everyone should use it. Thanks for reading.

What is your storage solution? Let me know in the comments!