Receive files directly to your Dropbox with 'Drop It To Me'

[For an introduction to Dropbox see this post. I have also written a bit about getting more Dropbox space for free.]

Once you have your Dropbox set up on your computers and mobile devices and have earned extra storage space, you may be thinking you have exhausted the opportunities that Dropbox has to offer. However luckily, the good people at Dropbox HQ have encouraged developers to come up with add-ons to make Dropbox even more useful.

This Dropbox wiki has a list of some officially endorsed add-ons available with clear descriptions of what exactly they do.

Unfortunately, the main add-on I have been using does not appear on this list. DROPitTOme (Drop It To Me). This tool allows users to receive files straight into their Dropbox from people without Dropbox installed. So, for example a child in my class could visit my DROPitTOme address, put in a password and then drop their completed work directly into my Dropbox folder.

Here is a quick guide to getting started with DROPitTOme:

1) Register your account (this will involve logging into your Dropbox)

2) Choose your unique DROPitTOme address and a simple password.
3) When someone else visits this address they will see a screen like this:

4) Once they put in the password, they will be presented with this screen:

5) They then select the file from their computer and click 'upload'.

I have found that this is a very good alternative to getting children to navigate through a complex folder system in order to save their work somewhere you can get at it. I really like the simplicity of DROPitTOme, but if you are after a more sophisticated solution then it might be worth checking out JotForm. This creates a 'form' that you can embed into a blog or wiki and visitors can use it to send files to your Dropbox.