Do you use Dropbox? Is it safe?

If you are a current user of any social media site, you’re probably well aware that images work really well, from cute furry animals, to inspirational quotes cleverly overlaid onto beautiful scenes, not forgetting your product shots if it’s a tangible item that you’re selling.

If you’re using lots of images, then chances are they’re taking up lots of space on your hard-drive, which is one of the reasons why people store their photos on a cloud based system such as Dropbox. Another reason is that it’s really easy to share images and files with family, friends or business associates – so it does away with the need to email images and risk that really annoying bounce back because your email is too big to be accepted!

Personally, I use Dropbox as a way for clients to send images to me. It’s invaluable and also means that I can access those images at any computer so my business is fully mobile. However, does that leave me vulnerable? What would happen if Dropbox was to close, or they had an issue and the site was down for a while? If I haven’t backed up those images, then they could be lost to me. That would be a huge pain, possibly disastrous, and extremely upsetting on a personal level if I’ve lost my treasured family photos.

Today I’d like to share with you how to back-up your Dropbox folders. It’s incredibly quick and simple and I urge you to make a note in your diary to do this on a regular basis.

To back up everything from your Dropbox account, log in to your account via the Dropbox Web site, then hit Ctrl+A to highlight all your files and folders. Click on the Download button which appears at the top. Your folders will then download a Dropbox.zip file to your computer. That’s it. Now you’ve got all your Dropbox files in a single zipped file for just in case a spanner gets stuck in the works or you decide to change providers.