Quick Tip: Versioning Your Graphics Files With Dropbox
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Quick Tip: Versioning Your Graphics Files With Dropbox

on May 15th 2012 with 22 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Topic: Versioning
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Screencast duration: 6 mins

Version control isn’t just something for developers and doesn’t just apply to code. Having a version history of your graphics documents may save you from that awful moment when you realize you’ve scrubbed over a crucial stage of the design process. Thanks to Dropbox, you might already be storing versions of your work without even having noticed..

Dropbox is like a time machine. It keeps snapshots of every change in your Dropbox folder over the last 30 days

Version History in the Cloud

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Remember, both Dropbox and Google Drive will keep snapshots of your files for just 30 days, unless you upgrade your account. You can read more of what Google have to say on the matter at support.google.com, or head on over to Dropbox Help to read up on their “Pack-Rat” pro feature (indefinite history storage).

Useful Resources and Alternative Services

  • Sign up for Dropbox if you haven’t already!
  • Sign up for Google Drive
  • Pixelapse – “Visual version control done right”.
  • Layervault – “Unlimited storage, simple version control, team collaboration, and much more”.
  • Microsoft SkyDrive
  • SugarSync – “..keeps the previous five versions of all your documents.”
  • iDriveSync – “Protect yourself from ‘digital accidents’ with versioning and unlimited file retention”

 
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Hi there! My name's Ian Yates. Welcome to Webdesigntuts+ :)  

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  • http://www.adipurdila.com AdiPurdila

    That’s a nice tip there Ian, thanks for that :)

  • http://wordimpressed.com Devin Walker

    I tried both Google Drive and Dropbox. Google Drive is what I want to use, but it’s unbearably slow to sync. I’ve found this is not just an isolated incident. Dropbox can sync GBs 10x as fast currently. No response from Google on the slowness, lots of disgruntled users online, for now, I’ll be sticking with Dropbox. When Drive gets faster, I’ll most likely switch.

    • http://www.snaptin.com Ian Yates
      Author

      Good points – there’s also the issue of whether or not Google technically owns your documents once they’re uploaded to Drive (a lengthy discussion which I won’t dive into right now!)

      • http://frossentid.com Eivind Birkedal

        The discussion comparing Dropbox’s EULA to Google Drive’s has pretty much settled on that Dropbox uses a readable legal document, while Google uses a more lawyer heavy language which makes the two EULAs seems awfully different when they are pretty much the same. Same meaning different languages.

  • http://www.diogosilva.net/ Diogo Silva

    Interesting stuff. I was unware of this feature. :/

    A big thank you. :)

  • http://www.maomuffy.com Mfawa Alfred Onen

    Definitely a new one…Thanks Ian!

  • http://exklamationmark.deviantart.com Mark

    Just to add to the list: Recently there’s a startup that make a utilities called Pixelapse, which help versioning graphic files. They also have a web interface where you can visually review your files

    http://www.pixelapse.com/

    • http://www.snaptin.com Ian Yates
      Author

      Added to the list – thanks!

  • Pingback: Quick Tip: Versioning Your Graphics Files With Dropbox | Shadowtek Hosting and Design Solutions

  • Chris

    A paid option is LayerVault. Provides a time-machine like interface for getting snapshots of your file from any point in the past, as well as, previews and project management tools, among other features. Check it out at http://www.layervault.com

    • http://www.snaptin.com Ian Yates
      Author

      Thanks for that Chris – added to the list :)

  • ziyad goulamgookhan

    This is just awesome! Very helpful indeed

  • Prathap

    yeah ah i knew about this and i thought that many ppl already knew about this method, anyhow nice to share with community.

    • Prathap

      By going into Events also you can see the version of files history to restore to earliest version of that file.

  • http://dave-mate.com Muhammad Asif

    SkyDrive is pretty good as well but if you have live account since 2007 you can also claim 25GB else 5GB is free for Sure! with all that features that can be found in gDrive n DropBox

    • http://www.snaptin.com Ian Yates
      Author

      Thanks Muhammad – I’ve never used SkyDrive, but I’ve heard a lot about it, so it’s been added to the list :)

  • http://www.imstillreallybored.com Josh Bedo

    Awesome did not know that and use Dropbox quite a bit this will definitely save me some time won’t have to worry about backing up as much to my external.

  • trkiwp

    That’s a great tip ! i am using dropbox for sync my laptop and tablet but this is next great idea for use which i was unaware of. Thx :)

  • Prathap
    • http://www.snaptin.com Ian Yates
      Author

      Thanks – added, along with SugarSync :)

  • http://feryardiant.web.id Fery

    I hope Ubuntu One can do this thing too. but curently not. T^T
    thanks for share Ian..

    • http://www.snaptin.com Ian Yates
      Author

      A similar sort of service, but you’re right about the current lack of versioning – I checked :)