Matthew McClure

November 3 2010

Syncing any folder with Dropbox

So I think Dropbox is a really cool idea. I use time machine for doing local backups, but I wanted to be able to backup my REALLY vital files such as school and work materials online. In the past I just dragged the files I really needed into my Dropbox folder, but that meant duplicates of everything and it wouldn’t automatically update. The answer? Symbolic links of course!

The ln command can be used to create a symbolic link to a folder like so.

ln -s /my/folder ~/Dropbox/folder

You can also do it with files.

ln -s /my/file ~/Dropbox/file

Lifehacker tipped me off on this one, so go give them some love.