Expert rating
Benefits
- Easy to use
- PDF and signature functionality
Disadvantages
- Disappointing free tier
- The paper application is not as good as its competitors
Our verdict
The app that started the cloud storage arms race, Dropbox, has fallen out of favor as others have usurped it.
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When considering the best cloud storage services for your Mac, it’s impossible not to think of Dropbox.
In many ways, the grandfather of them all. Dropbox became a market leader, but has since been overtaken by options like Google Drive and OneDrive.
It’s not that it’s a bad service. Dropbox remains a reliable way to sync data and files with the cloud, and its Mac app has become much more capable after a few years when it was relatively slow.
It simply doesn’t offer any must-have features and its competitors offer much more generous free tiers.
First impressions
Drop box
Given that I’ve chastised Apple’s iCloud for its 5GB limit for free users, Dropbox’s paltry 2GB starting offering seems so far behind Google with its 15GB of Google Drive space.
The next plan increases to $11.99/£9.99 per month (billed monthly), or $9.99/£7.99 per month if you pay for a year in advance. While this is roughly comparable to what others charge for 2TB of space, it’s a shame there aren’t any intermediate tiers. There are professional plans for 3TB and 9TB, but these seem exorbitant compared to the competition.
Still, price aside, Dropbox is an easy app to install and use thanks to the same Finder functionality you’ll find in its contemporaries, meaning it’s easy to drag and drop files between devices.
Dropbox Features
Drop box
While many cloud services offer menu bar apps in macOS, Dropbox’s is a large drop-down window that lets you see more information about recently downloaded and updated files, and I really liked it. liked how I was able to see what was being downloaded faster than I could. on alternative services.
Downloads seem pretty fast too, and the fact that it’s been around for so long means it has the kind of app integrations that will make other options jealous.
One of my favorite features is PDF Signing, which allows you to pass a file to someone, get a signature, and get it back without opening it for further editing.
The inconveniences of Dropbox
Drop box
Aside from being more expensive than its competitors and lacking low-end storage options, Dropbox just doesn’t seem as easy to use as many other cloud storage services.
It certainly seems closer to something like OneDrive, with a whole host of options at your fingertips. This will delight some, but to others it will look like a cluttered mess.
The essentials
Aside from fast download speeds and a convenient menu bar item, Dropbox is too expensive and often too complex to recommend to anyone other than longtime users who have built workflows around it.
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