Jul 31 Sharing images with Dropbox

Do you want an easy way to share photos with friends and family, in an easy to view album?

Dropbox makes this easy, and best of all, you don't need to have a Dropbox account to view the images.

Following on from our previous Dropbox articles, we had a couple of requests asking how Dropbox can be used to share photos with friends. Thankfully, Dropbox makes it easy, and displays the photographs online in a fantastically easy to use and clear gallery. Sharing an album takes seconds, so here's our step-by-step guide to sharing images with Dropbox:

1. If you haven't already, read our Introduction to Dropbox, and then use our simple Guide to install Dropbox.
   Note: the following guide is based on Windows 7, if you have any other operating system, or an Apple computer, you can see Dropbox's own guide HERE.
   
   
   
2. Open your Dropbox folder by clicking either the icon on your tool bar, the icon on your desktop, or the option from the Start menu:
   
   
   
   
3. You should see a "Photos" directory, double-click to browse this folder.
   
   
   
4. You now need to create a folder (or "album"), for the photos, click "New Folder" on the window tool bar, (alternatively, right click on some empty space in the window, and choose "New>Folder". Give the folder the name of your album. (e.g. "July Photos").
   
   
   
   
5. Now double-click to open the folder you just created, the folder will be empty of course:
   
   
   
   
6. Now you need to locate the photos which you would like to share. How you do this will depend on how you organise your photos, but generally the following instructions will apply:
   1. Go to your "Documents" folder, then to your "My Pictures" folder, or alternatively browse to your "Pictures" folder.
   2. Find the photos you would like, and select them. Note: to select multiple images hold down CTRL while single-left-clicking each photo.
   3. Once you have selected your photos, right-click your mouse and choose "Copy"
   4. Now navigate back to the Dropbox album folder, right-click and choose "Paste", your photos will now be copied to the Dropbox folder
      
      
      
7. Your Dropbox photo album should now have your photos in. Right click in an empty area of the album window. You should see a "Dropbox" menu option, go to this, then to "Copy public gallery link":
   
   
   
   
8. The link to the album will now be copied to the 'clipboard'. To check it works, quickly go to your web browser, right-click in the address bar, and click "paste", then hit Return.
   
   
   
   
9. You should now see your gallery appear in the web browser.
   Note: if you see an "Error (404)" message, leave your computer for 5 minutes or so and try later (you need to give Dropbox time to upload the photos).
   
   
   
10. You're done! to share link with your friends, just send them that link

Remember, the online gallery represents a 'live' view of the files you have on your computer. Therefore you have complete control over your album at all times; if you delete or change an image in your Dropbox album folder, the image will be deleted or changed online.