At my university, instructors publish all class notes on an online portal that we can download on our personal devices for later use. The problem is that I have to download these documents to all devices that use the portal, which is very time consuming. As a solution I started using
mobile Dropbox app
. Of course, all this is because both the portal and the computers on which they can be accessed have some limitations.
While using the mobile Dropbox app proved to be a useful workaround, the task was still cumbersome to some extent. A better way is to upload these files directly from the browser to the Dropbox folder, which can then be synced to any device whenever required.
Let’s see how to do that in Chrome and Firefox.
Download Dropbox for Chrome
Dropbox Download is a nifty extension for Chrome in use that you can directly upload linked files to Dropbox. Once you’ve installed the browser extension, click the Chrome extension button to authorize your Dropbox account. Delegation may give one or two failed results, but once done, the icon will turn green.
Once done, you can right click directly on any downloadable link like images, documents etc and choose option Upload to Dropbox. The extension will then upload the files in the background and you can monitor the progress by clicking the extension button. The developer has not mentioned any limit on the size of files that can be uploaded using the extension but it cannot exceed 300 MB to meet Dropbox’s maximum file size limit.
One thing to keep in mind when using an extension is that you must ensure that you are uploading the file and not any intermediate HTML files that redirect to the download link. The extension cannot manage the redirect and will upload the corrupted file.
Also, the extension won’t work well on services like Hotfile and Fileserve, which impose limits on free account downloads.
All files will be saved to folder /Applications/Chrome Downloads/ but that can be changed and even grouped by sites.
Alternative to Firefox
So that’s how you can use the Dropbox Download Chrome extension to directly upload files. Currently there is no direct extension available for Firefox users however there is a way we can achieve something similar using another extension called Save Link in directory.
The Save Link in Folder add-on for Firefox gives you the option to save files directly to a specific folder instead of the default download location configured in the browser. For the trick to work, you must have Dropbox for Windows installed on your computer. The idea here is very simple. Instead of downloading the file to a folder on your computer, you can use the add-on to download the file to the Dropbox folder.
Right click on the link you want to save and select the folder you want to save the file to. While using the add-on for the first time, click the option Edit folder and add the Dropbox folder you want to download. You can include multiple Dropbox folders to keep things organized.
I tried looking for alternatives to Opera and Safari but found nothing promising. However, if you think I’ve missed something, just make suggestions in the comments.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
