Make Dropbox my media and photo center

[tedesco24]

So I took the plunge and signed up for 1Tb of Dropbox. I've debated other services but Dropbox always seemed the easiest to use. So now that I have all this storage space, I want to fill it up. Specifically with my music collection, 57 gb...kid's ripped movies, 14 gb...and photos, 110 gb.

So what is the easiest way to get all of this stuff in Dropbox? I've read about redirecting iTunes. Does that mess up the way my MBP works? I'm ok with the standard Dropbox media player but I'm willing to look at other options if they work better.

I don't do much with music anymore since I use Spotify. But I would like to be able to auto load new pics right into my Dropbox. Any Hazel/IFTT/automator recipes I should look in to?

Thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

So I took the plunge and signed up for 1Tb of Dropbox. I've debated other services but Dropbox always seemed the easiest to use. So now that I have all this storage space, I want to fill it up. Specifically with my music collection, 57 gb...kid's ripped movies, 14 gb...and photos, 110 gb.

So what is the easiest way to get all of this stuff in Dropbox? I've read about redirecting iTunes. Does that mess up the way my MBP works? I'm ok with the standard Dropbox media player but I'm willing to look at other options if they work better.

I don't do much with music anymore since I use Spotify. But I would like to be able to auto load new pics right into my Dropbox. Any Hazel/IFTT/automator recipes I should look in to?

Thanks.

You can easily move your iTunes media to a Dropbox folder. No, it doesn't affect the MBP at all. As far as iTunes is concerned, it's just a folder. iTunes won't know if it's a regular or Dropbox folder.

As far as pics, you can also move them into a Dropbox folder. You can also set up Camera Uploads, so whenever you plug your iPhone/iPad into your Mac, it copies any pics/videos from your Camera Roll into the Dropbox.

I've also set up my Mac so that when I do screen captures, those go into my Camera Uploads folder in Dropbox, as well. You can do the same thing with movies or any other media or files.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Someone who has already placed their iTunes library in Dropbox would have to confirm that it's a trouble-free situation.

The one thing that would concern me would be the associated database files. Dropbox can show odd behavior with some apps (my experience is with Quickbooks Windows files) leading to multiple versions of a file being written and confusion for the app as to what is the correct file to reference.

 

[GGJstudios]

Someone who has already placed their iTunes library in Dropbox would have to confirm that it's a trouble-free situation.

I can confirm that it is trouble-free.

 

[tedesco24]

Thank you for the replies.

So I need to move my iTunes library. How do I go about this? I would think it would be an easy process but google has me confused. Can somebody walk me through the steps? One article mentioned keeping my iTunes synced across multiple iDevices. This would be ideal as the family is using my MBP, two iPads and two iPhones.

And once the library has been moved, can I delete it from my MBP?

Thanks again.

 

[Freyqq]

Thank you for the replies.

So I need to move my iTunes library. How do I go about this? I would think it would be an easy process but google has me confused. Can somebody walk me through the steps? One article mentioned keeping my iTunes synced across multiple iDevices. This would be ideal as the family is using my MBP, two iPads and two iPhones.

And once the library has been moved, can I delete it from my MBP?

Thanks again.

You can just drag itunes to dropbox and then direct itunes to use that folder's library. Or, you can use a symbolic link in the old music folder to direct itunes to look in dropbox.

 

[MacInTO]

And once the library has been moved, can I delete it from my MBP?

The Dropbox folder on Finder is actually physically on your HD/SSD and in the cloud. I'm not sure that you can delete it.

 

[Psyclism]

You can delete your music folder locally after uploading to dropbox by using the selective sync option in the Dropbox application. Basically you tell the app that you no longer want changes to that folder to be synchronized. Only after doing that can you actually delete the local files.

However, once you do this there's no going back. If you happen to turn sync back on, the app will see the deletes as new changes and will totally nuke your whole collection in the cloud.

You also won't be able to directly upload new music to your pre-existing collection. What I would do instead is add a "New Music" folder, have it sync, then manually move the files into your actual music folder from within the Dropbox web interface.. That should also delete the copies of the music on your local machine as well once the app sees that those new music files no longer exist. It's a pain in the butt process, but it can work.