More of us are increasingly opting to store our files in the cloud. This is not just to use our files on our home and our work computers, but increasingly to access our photos/videos/music and files on smartphones and tablets as well. And (let’s face it) one day most, if not all of our files will be in the cloud anyway.
Therefore, why not bypass your hard drive altogether and download files and media straight into your cloud storage accounts? That, in a nutshell, is what this free Chrome extension is designed to do. It will let you right click any link or object and download it straight into several possible cloud storage services, including Dropbox, Google Docs, Box.Net, Flickr, Windows Live Skydrive, Sugarsync, Facebook, and others.
Potential uses:
- Access files on a device or other PC: download media and files off of the internet straight to your cloud storage account(s), for access on your iPhone or other smartphone (assuming your cloud storage account is accessible via smartphone apps, which many of them are these days).
- Download using PC’s where you normally couldn’t: download media and files from other people’s computers or ones where you wouldn’t or shouldn’t normally do so (e.g a work computer).
Upload your files from your PC to cloud storage: simply use your Chrome browser to browse files locally (type in ‘file:///C:/’ (without the quotes) to browse your C: drive. See screenshot below for an example.
Note on authentication: on first access, this extension will send users to the login screen for the appropriate cloud service for authentication. Once you log in and grant the extension access once, you will not need to do so again within the same session. (But you will need to do so the next time around).
The verdict: a very nice extension indeed. Am considering adding this to the sequel to my “must have Chrome extensions” post that I am currently planning.
[Credit goes to sometime Freewaregenius contributor Priit L for the tip about this one].
Version tested: 1.3.8
Compatibility: requires Chrome
Go to the extension page in the Chrome app store to download the latest version.
Samer, I am a wedding photographer and need to transfer tons of pictures to my clients on a regular basis. I used to use upload based services but recently discovered Binfer. The best thing I like about it is that I can simply drag and drop a bunch of pictures and send them to my client and they get sent directly to their computer, without uploading anywhere. Check it out: http://www.binfer.com
dropbox my favourite service, thanks for tips. can you find services that can transfer file from popular file hosting directly to dropbox?