Dropbox (or others) for syncing different files to different devices?

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I have just recently gotten an Android phone and will soon be getting an iPad, so I have been looking into the various magical syncing options to transfer files from my pc to my phone and tablet and vice versa.

Dropbox seems to be the most popular, but what I really want to be able to do is to sync different files to different devices. So I would have one folder that would sync between my pc and phone, one for my iPad, and maybe one that would sync everywhere. For example, I really don’t want to sync PDFs to my phone (I just want those on my iPad), and I don’t want to have collections of tiny wallpapers on my iPad, etc.

Or, actually, am I thinking about this all wrong? Does dropbox automatically download all your files to your mobile devices when it syncs, or do you pick and choose what to download locally and what to keep in the dropbox cloud?

2

Dropbox uses a single unified folder. I think maybe SugarSync is the one you wanna look at.

3

Rethinking my question, I guess it wouldn’t matter as long as dropbox does not download the files automatically to the mobile devices (i.e. I don’t want tons of large PDFs to automatically download to my phone). Is that the way it works?

4

Correct. At least in my experience it doesn’t. You can view them and open them via the iOS Dropbox app, but it doesn’t auto store them on your device.

5

Dropbox on mobile is not a syncing tool, it’s a tool to make things available for download. But on Android, you can get a tool like FolderSync, which lets you set up folders to sync, so if you want to sync a wallpaper folder but ignore the PDF folder, you can. You can set up the sync as one-way or two-way; you can set it to run at scheduled times; etc.

I don’t know what’s possible on iOS that way.

6

Right, you have to click on the document for it to be downloaded but once it is I believe it DOES store it on the device. I never notice it downloading stuff again and again once I view it.

7

Thanks for the explanations. I feel like such a n00b figuring out various things on the phone.

I did find that the Google Drive app for Android will let you directly set an image file as wallpaper, so that’s very useful.

8

Oh, yeah, it doesn’t download files to your phone unless you want to. I have Dropbox on my Android and it’s fantastical. hugs Dropbox

9

The latest SkyDrive update lets you selectively choose which folders to sync with which devices.

10

Ohhhh, that sounds good too.

11

Another nod for Sugarsync here. You can set it to backup anything you choose and it’s very easy. Works on all platforms as far as i know and a free account is 5GB of space.

12

I LOVE Google Drive. LOVE IT!!! I’m not joking when I say it has changed my life and the way I use digital devices, and I’ve been using them for 35 years.

13

Very cool man. :)

14

On mobile devices, Dropbox allows you to flag individual files as ‘Favorites’ which are synced locally to the device. All files are availble via download even if not marked as favorite.

Like Dropbox, Sugarsync lets you access any file via download. However, Sugarsync lets you flag entire folders to be synced locally to a device. So if you have a specific folder you want on your iPad, flag that for sync, and on your Android phone, you can flag a different folder for local sync.

I love Dropbox, but in this regard, Sugarsync is far more flexible and useful.

15

Do Skydrive and Sugarsync permit a folder owner to disallow certain actions (edits, deletes etc.) for sharers?