Save hard drive space using dropbox

Dropbox has become quite a got to for cloud storage. Even though there are other out there, this article pertains to Dropbox and Mac users, sorry PC fans there is a remedy for you as well using a similar process.

So how do you save hard drive space using Dropbox?

Okay so you have Dropbox installed already and it’s working like a champ. Fire up terminal, were going to have to make some symlinks.

The easy way to do this is to have a finder window open. Browse to your Home location ie username, this is assuming that you have installed your dropbox folder under your username.

In terminal type the command ln -s and leave a space after -s, more on that in a second.

After that drag and drop your desired folder to be synced with your dropbox account to the terminal window, or type the full path to it such as /Users/username/Desktop/images

Note: If your folder has a space in it, it will be like this /User/username/Desktop/my images

Next drag your dropbox folder over to the terminal window or like wise type in the full path i.e. /Users/username/Dropbox then press enter.

You will now notice that next time you add something to this folder it will automatically be uploaded/synced to your dropbox.

In short the full command is ln -s <Desired_Folder_Location> <Dropbox_Folder_Location> with full paths to the folders in <>.

Side note on adding folders or applications to your finder window favorites bar

The easy way to do this is to find your desired folder or application folder in your user account home folder, hold the command key, click and drag the folder/application over to the Favorites bar.