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Dropbox Capture

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72 pointsfraXis71 comments

Interestingly, Dropbox has a second product in this space called "Screen Capture": https://www.dropbox.com/features/content-collaboration/scree...

There are others as well: Loom, GetCloudApp, Gyazo and a few more.

I have actually built one myself [1] ScreenBud.com, which is not ready for Show HN yet, but we already have >15000 users of our Chrome extension [2].

I am quite curious to hear from others about what you are looking for in these products. As for me, my main use cases are:

  1. In-browser screenshots with visual annotations (parts of emails, docs, or anything else that's not easy to share or pinpoint with a URL)

  2. Design feedback

[1] I hope the selfish plug is OK! [2] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/screenbud-%C2%B7-c... -- (it works on Firefox as well, but the publishing process for Firefox is a bit more involved)

Ive used Loom before and really like it but they recently switched how many videos you can store on the free plan and it really cut down on how I can use it. I used it to send quick project instructions to team members that are overseas, they rely on it so they can replay it at a speed they are comfortable with understanding the instructions.

Its interesting Dropbox is getting into this. My first thought is users can use storage faster than they would with normal documents by making Gifs and other videos. In my Loom library I had 110 videos at one time that were between 2-5 mins long.

If you are on a Mac you can do screen recording for free with a non-beta app that comes with the OS: QuickTime Player (assuming Dropbox will eventually charge for their product).

On windows: windows key + G. All operating systems come with one now, so I don't know who Dropbox is targeting here.

That's the "Xbox Game Bar". I tried it, and while it works, it's pretty klunky and non-intuitive.

There's also a good Open Source app that allows you to do that: https://obsproject.com/ Particularly if for some reason you want you face to be shown during screen capture.

The primary reason I used Loom (free account, saved the files directly) was to get my face on the recording as well. I would guess that's why people will like Dropbox Capture too.

Since, High Sierra I think? Cmd+Shift+5 has opened screen record mode.

With Dropbox automatically archiving screenshots and videos saved to desktop, this use case seems to have been covered already?

how do I add arrows or multiple images? Preview is a notorious PITA in this aspect, worse than Paint

If you're tired of Dropbox's "be the kitchen sink" mission statement, I've been using SyncThing[1] and it seems like a great replacement for Dropbox.

On Mac, be sure to install the cask version, which runs as an app: brew install --cask syncthing

A pretty good, basic blog post on how to set it up (but again, use the cask version instead): https://routley.io/posts/syncthing/

1. https://syncthing.net/

Plus it has all the features that was begged for on the Dropbox forum for years (like per-folder ignore rules https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Ignore-folder-...)

Syncthing really ought to be most people's de-facto syncing utility. I switched to it from Nextcloud, and while I gave up quite a bit of functionality, I've come to love how light and simple Syncthing is. Also, the Android support is top-notch, I don't think it's ever missed a sync.

Larger version of their screenshot: https://syncthing.net/img/screenshot.png

Meh I am an existing user, can't be bothered to change to this. Convenience matters.

I love Dropbox! Except everything that has nothing to do with syncing my files. That's just bloat to me.

So I gave them a chance on this, scrolled to trough the page, but for the life of me could not figure out what it is that they're selling here.

Also, as the messag was unclear, my other thought was that this might be third-party thing, since the style of the page (especially the header fonts) seem so much different from the dropbox that I know.

Same here.

I love Dropbox, but more and more often I am completely quitting and closing the Dropbox client because it takes over the computer processing.

I welcome all the new features they are developing, I just wish they would release a Dropbox Light client that didn't try to have those features or anything more than a sync utility.

I miss the old menu-bar Dropbox that I never even noticed it was running...

Sounds like my Linux Dropbox client. I never notice it whatsoever. In fact, this post made me check if it's still there and yup, it is, keeping my entire Code folder synced between computers.

> Try Dropbox Capture, and get your message across with screenshots, GIFs, or simple videos recorded right on your screen. So you can clearly say what you mean without scheduling anything.

This is at the top of the page for me. Seems pretty clear?

I usually assume an unrequested, auto-playing, rapid-moving video at the top of a page is one of those trashy video-as-hero-image things and scroll to get it away so I can actually pay attention to what's on the page.

For me, it’s in plaintext, at the top of the page, for both mobile and desktop - not in an auto playing video.

I get that hating on Dropbox’ diversification is a HN pastime, but please be rational and not emotional.

No, thanks. I'm okay having a healthy balance of clear thought and normal human emotion. This has nothing to do with either. Why did you mention that? Quit derailing. The video is right next to the text.

Now that I know there's text there, I could ad block the nuisance, but I'm not interested in the tool. Or continuing this conversation. Go have your unmanaged, unrecognized, denied emotions somewhere else.

> but I'm not interested in the tool

What are you doing in this post? HN guidelines are clear about fostering open, quality discussion. This is not a thread to rant about Dropbox just because you hate it.

I didn't rant about Dropbox.

It’s screen recording/presentation tooling. Looks like a https://loom.com competitor.

Tella is also a competitor: https://www.tella.tv/

Wow, even the Dropbox Capture landing page looks almost like Loom's...

Think "Windows Snipping Tool", but can also do video and screen recording. You would paste the result into MS Teams, or Slack, etc.

> everything that has nothing to do with syncing my files

Dropbox feels more and more like Evernote all the time. I don't know what is the purpose of this product. To get people to pay $10/month for their storage service?

I can get a family plan from Microsoft with 1 TB of storage for each of six people, plus their office apps, for $100/year. I can get 2 TB from Google or Apple for the same price as Dropbox, but they have lower price points too. Google and Apple storage are already on your device when you buy it. A Chromebook comes with Google Drive for 1 year for free.

Rather than accepting reality, Dropbox appears to be stuck in 2012 where people think of them when they think of cloud storage, and they think that slapping additional features on top will make up for their pricing.

For me the point of Dropbox is sync that works so well that I can even manage development projects on the shared folder.

In my experience the Microsoft syncing is not even close match.

This is likely also problem for Dropbox. For heavy users their main costs must come from bandwidth and processing - not raw storage.

I use syncthing doing that across Linux, macOS and windows. It's fire and forget.

Dropbox syncs anything you put on your file system across computers, the others don't.

Dropbox really is great. I used them in college and it was always effective yet painless. Since then I've used google because it integrates so well with everything from youtube to google office, but it's file syncing just isn't that great. I've been meaning to move away from google for file backups; I think I'll check out dropbox again.

Or does anybody have something recommend over dropbox and google?

There's literally a GIF showing what it does

For some reason their video at the top doesn't show properly on Firefox on Windows. They have two versions, one .mov and one .webm. The .mov doesn't work for me while the .webm does, but that's the second video source so I guess it's not selected correctly. Maybe the .mov works fine on macs.

https://aem.dropbox.com/cms/content/dam/dropbox/warp/en-us/c...

It's not literally a gif and it is broken on Firefox.

There is a webm which seems fine in itself, but a broken quicktime .mov shows right on top of it, hiding it.

Where? There’s just an empty green box on firefox

Turns out, it’s HEVC video in a Quicktime container... Who thought that’s a good idea?

Uuuugh... another half attempt by Dropbox to add value beyond file storage & sync. Half attempt is the key here... b/c the idea has value several iterations down the road if they can OCR/parse/infer intent from the screenshots.

Here is exhibit A on a company that has exhausted its strategy but is compelled by the nature of Capital to seek additional growth. I remember seeing many years ago an anecdote of Steve Jobs telling Drew Houston to sell to Apple because Dropbox was just a feature, not a company (it was connoting that Jobs was wrong about that). Although Drew was right not to sell at that time it looks like Jobs was also right.

> To get started, visit dropbox.com/capture on your Windows or macOS computer to download the app.

So, no Linux client. Dropbox is one of the few companies which had a proper linux client for syncing files. It is a pity that they are now releasing products which do not have linux support.

It really is. One of the primary reasons I’ve been using them for 15 years is a commitment to cross platform.

I may seriously have to rethink this moving forward and that’s going to be odd for something that was such a core piece of my tooling.

Not even the demo video shows properly in Firefox on Linux, as it’s HEVC in a Quicktime container…

I see webm on chrome: https://aem.dropbox.com/cms/content/dam/dropbox/warp/en-us/c...

This is what I get in firefox on linux: https://aem.dropbox.com/cms/content/dam/dropbox/warp/en-us/c...

Heh. On windows, it downloads it, then Windows Media Player asks me to pay $0.99 for an HEVC codec. It's like a back to the 90's "install RealVideo™" experience.

As soon as Linux desktop software becomes anyway profitable to develop and maintain, I’m sure companies like Dropbox will build for it. That’s not Dropbox’s problem. It doesn’t help that Linux isn’t really a single OS but a bunch of different distro’s, file systems, installers, making building a single client impossible. oh and horrible entitlement thrown in for good measure. Get that house in order and maybe it’ll be easier to build and maintain.

How is it impossible when I'm literally using Dropbox, VS Code, Datagrip, Firefox, Bitwarden, Telegram on Linux every day?

There is a huge amount of high quality cross platform apps out there, and my Linux desktop is not only fast, it's also extreamly reliable and has no Microsoft or Apple inside.

Dropbox can't make file sharing cross platform? That's frankly ridicolous.

Don't understand. What's wrong with just pasting a screenshot or recording into Slack or your PM tool of choice?

Adding Dropbox is just adding another layer of auth, sharing permissions, storage quotas, etc.... ugh

It should be seamless. You just record a video and it is instantly shareable. Could be useful for reporting UI bugs. You can also use the mic to describe the problem.

It's the opposite of seamless, no? Instead of pasting the video (which macOS and Windows can both natively record) into your bug tracker or Slack, you have to first upload it to Dropbox Capture, share the link to that, worry about permissions and storage, etc... it adds more friction than it removes

It doesn't work like that. The moment you end the capture, the video is automatically uploaded, the link is provided and you just send it over slack or paste to jira or whatever.

You're missing the point. That's almost the same as the OS doing it natively and pasting into Slack. Except it adds one more step than before, along with permissions & pricing headaches. What's the advantage?

Instead of the native: Screenshot/recording --> clipboard --> Slack

Now you have Screenshot/recording --> clipboard --> Dropbox capture + permissions/billing --> Slack

Why would Dropbox insert itself into a process that works fine without it and adds no benefit?

It's like instead of copying & pasting a paragraph of text into Slack, you use an extension that makes a GDoc of it and then links to that. But why?

> Screenshot/recording --> clipboard --> Dropbox capture + permissions/billing --> Slack

Could you list some examples of software that require you to go through permissions or billing for every usage? Otherwise, this is a made-up concern.

GDocs, for one. Every time you share a link, some people can see it and some can't, and newcomers and agencies keep having to ask for permissions...

Sure, it's fixable, but again why introduce the complexity when Slack and Jira ALREADY LET YOU PASTE IN RICH MEDIA and handle permissions and sharing internally?

What does Dropbox Capture add that makes it worth the extra hoops? The markup? The embedded avatar? I just fail to see the worth of this product...

> GDocs, for one. Every time you share a link

I’ve never heard anyone complain about granular permissions for potentially sensitive documents. However, your “issue” is entirely made-up, because you can easily generate an “Everyone” link in gDocs.

> Slack and Jira ALREADY LET YOU PASTE IN RICH MEDIA and handle permissions and sharing internally

Slack & Jira are for different use cases/audiences, and handle significantly less rich media than gDocs can. However, if your company is shoehorning gDocs into situations where you could type into these other tools, that’s a social problem, not a technical one.

> What does Dropbox Capture add that makes it worth the extra hoops?

Given their positioning and competition, I’m going to assume there are very few “hoops” in their UX.

> I just fail to see the worth of this product...

Honestly, from reading the rest of your rant and misplaced anger, I don’t think you’d be able to clearly see product value anyways.

Also, it is very valuable to persist all these videos/screenshots in the cloud. You can re-use them later and maybe it will help you debug. It is neat to auto-organize these files.

https://www.getcloudapp.com has been doing this for ages + supports custom domains.

Yeah, I remember using this as far back as 2009 or 2010

Every time I hear about Dropbox I think of VisiCalc [0].

They (Dropbox) made sharing data so easy and gave it a native feel, at least on MacOS. And eventually OSes rolled out the same features (iCloud, OneDrive), the same way VisiCalc was steamrolled by other spreadsheet software.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

Dropbox has lost its way. This has been true for awhile.

I remember when Dropbox was great; it did one thing extremely well.

Now it does a bunch of things, none of them well.

This may not end well.

What can they possibly do that their core product is a commodity by now?

I believe there’s a push in orgs (where most of the money is, no doubt) to streamline their tools, or at least reduce the number of vendors they receive invoices from. If Dropbox can have just one more essential tool in the mix they could keep their commodity service going too. Without it, it’s all too easy to replace with something from Google or Microsoft as one of them is in every org.

I've seen very few companies release other products while properly maintaining their core ones.

I'm really really glad I switched to syncthing, it works fantastic for my use case.

On top of that, it's expensive for what it does.

I'm all for MVP's, and this does say BETA, but I can't get it to work and it looks like it's riddled with bugs.

* It's not signed on Mac, so you have to jump through a hoop or two to install it

* When I click my account it flashes something and then shows my account list again

* Feedback requires a "Canny" account (no thanks)

It's baffling that there is no example or demo or even a video of what it'd look like.

It makes you login to Dropbox. I get they want to expand the user base, but that's sort of odd in that you wouldn't need that for the functionality shown in the explainer video.

I imagine someone will run it through a disassembler soon and upload a nice standalone tool.

I wish they would stop and fix energy usage of the basic sync client. The "Dropbox Web Helper" process sits there nibbling away at my battery even when the machine is otherwise idle.

Who gives a hoot about Dropbox’s constant product extensions? Remember IBM’s copier?

Windows/macOS only. On Linux, it shows a download button that doesn't work.

It looks nifty but why is sign in required to use it?

It automatically stores your captures to your dropbox account. Would be good to allow you to store locally as well though.

Reminds me of SnagIt

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