Dropbox for iPhone and iPad users is getting a lot more powerful today as the latest version includes a new action extension for iOS 8. This allows you to save information from various apps to Dropbox on iOS without having to open the cloud-syncing app.
For example, you can send photos directly to Dropbox from the iOS Photos app making uploading images to the cloud service much easier than before. You can also use the new action extension to save text files to Dropbox but entries you create in the iOS Notes app. For files you come across on the web like PDFs from websites, the “Open In…” action will now include Dropbox as well creating a more desktop-like experience.
To take advantage of the new action extension for iOS 8, make sure you have the latest version of Dropbox installed, version 3.7, and activate the action extension.
To make the process easy, open an image in the Photos app and tap the share button (an upward arrow) then scroll to the far right of the bottom row of gray actions. Next, tap more (…) and look for “Save to Dropbox” as an activity. Toggle the switch on and drag the action to where you would like to save it.
The iOS 8 Dropbox share extension should now appear in any app that Dropbox supports including Photos, Notes, files in Safari, and more. In addition to the new share extension, Dropbox already supports a number of other iOS 8-specific features including Touch ID authenticating and iCloud Drive.
What’s New in Version 3.7
• New Action Extension for iOS 8: save files straight to Dropbox from your favorite apps
• Better experience receiving shared links on iPhone – when visiting a shared link, supported files will show an option to “Open in app” that takes you to Dropbox
• Bug fixes and improvements related to moving and deleting files, printing and exporting, RTF previews, and password protected files
Dropbox 3.7 for iPhone and iPad is available for free on the App Store.
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Pretty much almost as useful as the Android version *ducks*
After how many YEARS has it been, and you STILL can’t get a share link for any file without initiating the download OF said file. Now that’s just seriously f’d up and should have been the very FIRST feature of the app the very day it was released. DropBox are a real stupid bunch of developers IMO.
This feature was added some time ago – seems you missed it. Swipe to the right on any file or folder and it will reveal share / delete / favourite actions. Tap the share icon and choose link. It will generate a share link and save it to your clipboard. No opening of the file required.
“For example, you can send photos directly to Dropbox from the iOS Photos app making uploading images to the cloud service much easier than before.”
Not sure if that is easier than using the automatic upload feature, but it’s a nice addition to the app nonetheless.
Automatic upload is probably easier, but I take too many photos too often for that to work with my storage limit. Manual upload from Photos as an option is nice for sure.
I just tested the new extension, and have found one serious limitation… While it works as advertised, and quite well, allowing even the selection of a sub-folder in my Dropbox to save images into, as an example, it doesn’t allow selection of multiple files at once.
Say I select 1 image, the option to save to Dropbox is visible. The moment I select 2 or more, the option vanishes, which makes the extension very limited. Imagine if I want to move a dozen images to Dropbox, I have to repeat the selection process a dozen times!!! This is NOT good!
Yeah, that’s really weird. At first I thought maybe it would work if you selected multiples a different way, but doesn’t do that at all.
It might not be as terrible if it could do it in the background, but the modal progress dialog thing is a total pain, too.
So… pardon my ignorance but what is the difference between this and the document picker extension that was already available in iOS with Dropbox installed?
Not a great feature addition as it works with single files only. It would make the example used here of uploading photos particularly difficult as most people are likely to want to upload more than one photo at a time! FoggyClouds reviews.
Oddly…doesn’t seem to work with Touch ID…lovely. /eyeroll