The title says it all.
I’ve used Dropbox, both personally and professionally, for some time now. One of the biggest chores is the sharing process. While it’s not terrible, it’s a still a bit of a chore. Bouncing email conversations and approvals between recipients.
I’m here to announce that I will be officially vacating all of my data out of Dropbox. No, not for some scandalous TOS stuff like what they pulled a couple years ago with the “if you upload it to us, we own it” statement.
Know what I’ve also been using for the better part of a decade? Gmail. Sometime in the last 6-12 months, I also installed Google Drive, but all that was in there was some old stuff that was still online as part of my Google Docs. I guess they got put into gDrive at some point.
Yesterday, I went to send an email, and clicked the paper clip to attach a small file. Up popped this message about “using Google Drive to attach this file…”
*light bulb*
Dropbox, you were just served your notice.
Let’s break down what this actually does for you….
- Both gDrive and Dropbox both live sync files to your computer, almost in the exact same way. I have a special folder in Finder with their name’s, and a tray icon and submenu for each one.
- Sure, I can share files in Dropbox, and then email a link.
- People still spend a good portion of their time in email, and it likely remains the primary form of sharing data.
- Being able to attach/link in a new gmail mail from my gDrive account might be one of the best and most underrated/unknown things out there today.
And if we really take this to the extreme…. You now can also send ~10GB attachments, assuming tiny email, and one giant file in your gDrive.
Think about that for a second. Really let it sink in. 10GB! We’ve been saddled at the 20MB mark for a long time now with most cloud-based and enterprise mail systems.
I’m sold. I have 6 gmail accounts, all linked to my main gmail account, that is also linked itself to my gDrive account.
Engagement:
- What file sharing service(s) do you use and why?
- Is Dropbox sharing one of the things they’re really lacking, true email integration?
- Have you tried Google Drive yet? I’m fairly novice, but it looks straightforward enough. Give me some tips!
So you have 6 gmail accounts all linked, does that give you effectivly six times the data capacity for free? Also, are you a droid or iPhone user?
I suppose, but even on the BIG main one, I’m only using 1% of my 10GB allocated. I am an iPhone user.
what I miss in gdrive: you cannot sync symlinks. This is painful. Usually I symlink the content to my dropbox folder and it just works (they say also with box.net and sugarsync). with gdrive you have to do the opposite.
what I like in gdrive: the ease of mark files for offline use
what I hate in gdrive: if you delete a file on desktop/phone whatever, it puts the file into the trash folder which you access only from the web grrrr
what I miss in gdrive: you cannot sync symlinks. This is painful. Usually I symlink the content to my dropbox folder and it just works (they say also with box.net and sugarsync). with gdrive you have to do the opposite.
what I like in gdrive: the ease of mark files for offline use
what I hate in gdrive: if you delete a file on desktop/phone whatever, it puts the file into the trash folder which you access only from the web grrrr
I still using both Dropbox and Google Drive, for different uses. And I also using a multi-cloud management called MultCloud (https://www.multcloud.com) manage them in one interface.