9 Search for anything
At the top of the app menu is a search bar. As well as names
and icons, Dropbox will also show you other file information, such
as size and when it was last edited. You can also see where in your
Dropbox the file is stored – you might have a January.xlsx in a
2019 folder, but also one in 2018 and 2017, too. The ‘link’ icon gets
you a link to the selected file directly from this window.
7
The app menu
Finally we see the Dropbox app! It sits in your notifications
area looking like it’s doing nothing. In fact, it’s keeping an eye on
your files and making sure they synchronise. Clicking on the
Dropbox icon brings up this menu – it shows you all the recently
edited and synchronised files and when they were modified. This
menu will also show you any notifications you need.
5
The Dropbox folder
This is the key window of Dropbox – the local (on your PC)
folder that shows everything that’s currently in your Dropbox. As
you can see, Dropbox overlays icons – these blue spinning icons
indicate synchronisation taking place. A green tick means that file
has been synchronised. Dropbox updates in real time, so if a file is
edited somewhere else, the change will be reflected right away.
10 Managing files
There are stacks of other file management options in the
main Dropbox menu. Select a recently uploaded bunch of files
and you can unfurl the bundle to see each one individually. You
can share it, get a link, star it for easy retrieval or open the file.
What’s more, you can open it in specific apps – so if you want to
send an image to Photoshop, you can do that from here. Q8
For you
The For You menu here looks a little blank, but it’ll populate
with tailored access to files you use often. Here it’s showing our
Current Work folder which is one of our most-used folders. Note
that synchronisation is taking place here – you can see progress at
the very bottom of the window where Dropbox will tell you how
many files there are left to process.6 Sharing files
You can share files from just about anywhere in Dropbox- here’s how to share in Windows. Right-click a file and go to
Share alongside the Dropbox icon. You’ll then see this rather plain
window which enables you to write a message and say where the
file is going – add an email address. You can also share by copying
a Dropbox link that you can send in other ways, like in a text.
26 |^ |^ December 2019