Dropbox is a file hosting service, online cloud storage and collaboration space that allow people bring their documents, photos and videos everywhere and share them easily. There’s a free version that with limited feature sets and a paid version for enterprises and power users.
This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install and setup Dropbox on Ubuntu 18.10 / 18.04 and 16.04 desktops.
When you install Ubuntu Desktop there are some useful applications you may want to install right away. Dropbox is one such tool that most people will want to install.
You can also use Dropbox as an online storage to backup or store your data automatically. Using Dropbox to backup your content provides some security and piece of mind. In the event your machine crashes, your data will be saved and ready to be restored onto another computer.
There are other online storage providers but none support Linux or Ubuntu as Dropbox and if they did, their service is not as reliable as Dropbox.
To install Dropbox on Ubuntu, continue below:
Step 1: Install Ubuntu Dropbox installation loader
There are many ways to install Dropbox on Ubuntu. You can download the installer package directly from Dropbox’s download page.
Select the arch version (64-bit for Ubuntu ) for your machine and save the download file locally to your machine. By default, all downloads are saved in your Downloads folder of your home directory.
After downloading the .DEB package, navigate to the Downloads folder in your home directory. Right-click the downloaded package and select Open with Software Install. Then install it using Ubuntu software install package.
Install the Dropbox.
Option #2: Install from the Commmand line
You could also run the commands below to install the installer loader for Dropbox on Ubuntu. Doing this will download Dropbox packages and install on your machine.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get -y install nautilus-dropbox
After installing the tool above, it will automatically launch Dropbox installer wizard. If Dropbox installer isn’t launched automatically, search for it and launch it.
Step 2: Configure Dropbox
When the wizard begins, continue with Dropbox installation. You may be prompted to create a new account if your don’t already one or type your username and password to logon if you do have one.
After the installation, a folder called Dropbox will be created in your home directory. If you want to automatically backup stuff online, just add your stuff into that folder. You can create sub folder in the Dropbox folder of your home directory to sync to the cloud.
Dropbox icon will also be added to the top menu bar where you can easily manage and access your online content.
So, to make a file or folder automatically backed-up to your online storage (Dropbox account), move them into the Dropbox folder of your home directory.
All connected devices to your Dropbox account will see the new files and folders almost instantly after adding them to the Dropbox folder in Ubuntu
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