How To Sync Your Mac's Documents To Dropbox

Cloud storage is available in many forms these days, but top of the heap is Dropbox. In this article we’re going to show you how to sync your Mac’s documents to Dropbox.

These days you might have at least one, maybe several backups, for your computer files and data. If you aren’t currently backing up your files, it’s time to take action. Whether you’re storing family photos or your businesses’ data, you want to ensure your files are always backed up and safe.

Additionally, many of you most likely have several devices ranging from an iPhone to an iPad to a Mac computer or laptop. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all of your files available to you from any device?

Dropbox offers you this type of secure place to store your files and share them across device with easy, instant access. Dropbox is extremely fast, and you can access your files easily.

Let’s get to it. Here’s how to sync your Mac’s documents to Dropbox.

Sync Your Mac with MacDropAny

You can simply sync your Mac’s documents to Dropbox with a program called MacDropAny. It allows you to harness the power of the Cloud and access any folder on your Mac by linking it with Dropbox.

MacDropAny isn’t a Cloud storage service, but it extends the functionality of Dropbox. You can use this system to sync your files using Dropbox’s Cloud storage.

The brainchild of an 18-year old Princeton student, MacDropAny creates a connection – a symbolic link – between folders on your Mac and the Cloud. You can synchronize any folder on your Mac to Dropbox and access it from anywhere. Whenever you add, edit or delete a file inside a synced folder, your Dropbox account mirrors the changes.

Interestingly, folders synced with the Cloud via MacDropAny experience a convenient duality - they are located both in the Cloud and locally on your Mac. Why is this so great? It means you can view and edit your files even without an Internet connection.

Sync Your Mac on Your Own

If you are a computer savvy person, you can sync your Mac on your own. Here’s how:

• Download and install the Dropbox app from the Dropbox website. Watch carefully – we’ve given you the download link, and it will download the app automatically.
• Once you've got the Dropbox app up and running, open Terminal.
• Navigate in Terminal to your Dropbox folder by typing cd /Users/YourMacUsernameHere/Dropbox and then hitting return. A new line in Terminal appears that's Your-Computer-Name:Dropbox YourUserName$
• Create your symbolic link by typing ln -s ~/FolderNameHere and hitting return. A folder appears in your Dropbox folder with the alias/shortcut arrow, and it immediately begins uploading.
• To create a symlink to your Desktop, type ln -s ~/Desktop
• To create a symlink to your Documents folder, type ln -s ~/Documents
• To create a symlink to any other folder or file, simply type its file path after ln -s ~/FilePathGoesHere. You’ll like this if you want to back up most of your Documents folder, but not everything.
• To create a symlink to a folder or file with a space in its name, put a backslash before the space, like so: ln -s ~/Documents/Star\ Trek\ Aldrin
• Dropbox starts uploading your symlinked folders.

Anytime you create a file or edit it in one of your symlinked folders, it is automatically uploaded to Dropbox. If you create or edit the file remotely on any of your other devices, it is automatically synced back to your Mac.

To Conclude

File sharing and Cloud storage is the wave of the future. One of the best features of Dropbox is the ability to share files between friends and family and business colleagues and employees. You can determine who you’ll share folders with. You can even set passwords on folders and give the password out to select people.

Harness the power of the Cloud by syncing your Mac’s documents to Dropbox. Have instant, easy access to all your personal and work files, folders and photos any time by syncing your Mac’s documents to Dropbox.

Do you back-up your files to the Cloud? If so, what’s your favorite method? Please share it here. We’d love to hear about your experiences with Cloud storage.