Sharing iPhoto Photos via Dropbox

Do other members of your family regularly ask you if they can access photos that you've got in your iPhoto library on your Mac? Maybe you took some great shots of a vacation or a wedding which they’d like to include in their own Timebox stories? Or maybe your iPhoto library contains the scanned images of your father's family slides?

In our family we’ve tried a number of different ways to solve this problem, but lately we’ve had the most success using Dropbox and its recently introduced feature called “Import Photos from iPhoto.” If you use iPhoto and Dropbox but haven’t put them together yet, you may find this post helpful.

Adding Your iPhoto Photos to Dropbox

The Import Photos from iPhoto feature in the Dropbox app on the Mac lets you easily “import” all of your iPhoto photos to a new subfolder in your Dropbox folder. If you haven’t tried this feature, here’s how to use it on your Mac:

  1. Click the Dropbox icon on the menu bar.
  2. Click the gear icon and select Preferences… from the menu.
  3. Select the Import tab.
  4. Click Import Photos from iPhoto…

If you have a lot of photos in iPhoto and depending on how fast your Mac’s connection to the Internet goes, it may take a few minutes or a few hours to import and upload all of your photos. Once the Import and upload are completed, you’ll find a new folder in your Dropbox account called "Photos from iPhoto." 

For further info on setting up Dropbox with iPhoto, see https://www.dropbox.com/help/1963

Sharing Your iPhoto Photos via Dropbox

Dropbox allows you to share any folder in your Dropbox account with any other Dropbox users. 

To share your Photos from iPhoto folder from your Mac:

  1. Open your Dropbox folder in the Finder.
  2. Click to select the Photos from iPhoto folder in your Dropbox folder.
  3. Choose Share this Folder from the Dropbox menu button on the toolbar.
  4. The Share this Folder button will open dropbox.com in Safari and display a dialog box that lets you specify the email addresses of people you’d like to share with.
  5. Enter their email addresses and then click Done to invite them to share your photos.

Using Dropbox and iPhoto Photos with Timebox

If you open the Photos from iPhoto folder in the Finder you’ll see that Dropbox has created subfolders that correspond to each of your iPhoto Events. If like me, you have a random mess of iPhoto Events, you can end up with a lot of equally messy subfolders. This is where the Timebox 2.3 update really helps out!

In Timebox 2.3 we added special support for Dropbox so it will merge all the messy Photos from iPhoto subfolders and give you one great-looking 3D timeline with all your photos.

Timebox now also “caches" your Dropbox folder info on your iOS device. It may take a few seconds for Timebox to open a Photos from iPhoto folder the first time, but after that, it should be pretty fast.

Following these steps you can share all your iPhoto photos with family members and you can all use each other’s photos to create your Timebox stories!

Len

Timebox 2.3 Now Available

The Timebox team is proud to announce the availability of Timebox 2.3. We listened to our customer’s feedback and worked hard to fulfill a number of requests. All the new features are listed below but we wanted to point a few special things out first:

Starter Stories

New Getting Started experience for new users. It is now much easier to get started and see what you can do with Timebox. 

Better Dropbox Support

Improved Dropbox support, especially for folders containing thousands of photos. This has been tested with our own Dropbox accounts which have about 15,000 photos spread across about 600 folders. Seeing all our family photos, organized by date, ready to add to Timebox is both convenient and fun.

Timebox Description

We also took the opportunity to update the description of Timebox to better reflect what it does for you. 

Timebox - Keeps your favorite photos and stories together forever. On your devices and on paper and metal.

Timebox is perfect for collecting and organizing your favorite photos and stories about your life - family, friends, trips, schools, pets, sports, parties and more.

Timebox automatically organizes your photos so finding your favorites is easy. Add a long story, a short story, a phrase or just a caption and you’re done.

With Timebox you can make long-lasting, sharable gifts with your stories using the customizable, built-in designs for ebooks (free), photo collage posters, books, magazines and memory cubes.

With the Timebox Cloud Service you can sync across all your iOS devices.

Timebox will always be private and ad-free.  

All That's in 2.3

Here's the full list of what’s new in Version 2.3:

  • Portrait poster photo collages (in addition to landscape posters).
  • Improved Dropbox support for large folders. Timebox now efficiently supports Dropbox folders containing thousands of photos; especially handy when using the Dropbox automatic Import Photos from iPhoto or sharing all your photos.
  • New Help button on the Cloud Options page. This page also has a new Rate This App button. If you like Timebox please rate our app: it really helps.
  • Improved memory cube automatic photo layout.
  • Improved Getting Started experience for new users. 
  • Many bug fixes and minor enhancements. 

New users can optionally enter a few details than before to get started.

Timebox will create "starter stories" so new users can get going quicker.

Dropbox folders can now contain thousands of photos.