Sync Your Desktops with Dropbox

 

source: Greg Neate

Dropbox is one of my favorite online services. It not only allows you to backup the documents on your computer(s), but it also lets you share documents easily between multiple computers and even has a public folder that lets me share files with other people.

When I first signed up, I moved my entire file system into my Dropbox folder so that I could access everything from both computers. That worked great except I frequently save things temporarily to my desktop, and I couldn’t access those files from the other computer. Occasionally I would switch computers in the middle of a project and realize that the files I needed were on the other desktop.

It happened enough that I was really starting to get frustrated by it, so I began to look for ways to sync my desktops as well as my file system.

Thankfully, I found a solution!

Here’s how to sync your desktops using Dropbox:

Note: This works, but I have no idea how to reverse it. If you do know how to reverse it, please tell us! Otherwise, you’ll want to be sure that you really want to do this before you do it.

1. Open your file explorer window.

2. Right click on the Desktop and click Properties.

3. Click on the Location tab.

4. Click Move.

5. Select your Dropbox folder as the new location and click Apply.

When you do this, all of the files in your Dropbox folder will suddenly appear on your Desktop. Don’t freak out! What you need to do is create a new parent folder (mine is called — wait for it — Files) and drop all of the other files and folders into it.

Now, do the same thing on your other computer(s).

Voila! Now when you drop something on your desktop, it will automatically show up on the other desktop as well!

Do you use multiple computers? If so, how do you share documents between them?