Note: Updated 26th April, 2012 (see bottom).
Even without a smartphone, you can get 13.25GB 21.25GB free space in your Dropbox account. You start with 2GB when you sign up for Dropbox. Dropbox support Windows, Mac, Linux and multiple mobile platforms. After you have completed their little start-up guide, which require you to install Dropbox on your computer, you will get another 250MB (0.25GB). Then it’s time to get more gigabytes.
You can get an additional 8GB 16GBfree space, by inviting friends and other Internet surfers. You get 250MB 500MB for each person you invite, if they sign up, install Dropbox and sign in. So if you have 32 friends, that want Dropbox, lucky you! If you are like most people, you probably won’t get all the gigabytes.
The first thing you should do is invite those you think will install Dropbox, or everyone on your contact list (also famously called spam). The second is to make a public post on Twitter, Google Plus, Tumblr. and on Facebook. Maybe 32 of your 200-300 “friends” on facebook will sign up? Posting on social networking sites is a good way to get clicks on your referral link, and you can do it as many times as you want. How often is up to you, but maybe do it twice a year? It all depends on how active you are, how many followers you have and how badly you need the free space.
Don’t create x amounts of e-mail addresses, just to get the gigabytes you are missing. There is probably a written rule somewhere, telling you not to. If there isn’t a written rule, it should be written asap. It is a unwritten rule that would call this cheating and not a good thing. You might even get bad karma, and who wants bad karma?
One solution is to use google adwords. If you google for Dropbox, you will most likely see an ad for Dropbox at the top. This is not an ad from the Dropbox company, but people using Dropbox. The link in the ad will look something similar to this: http://db.tt/85pRmn1T. This will cost you some money, but shouldn’t be to expensive, if you stop the ad campain right after you get your 8 gigabytes. Remember that you pay for each click on the ad, but you only get space for each person that installs and sign in to Dropbox.
The second solution is to keep spamming Twitter, Google Plus, Tumblr., Facebook and maybe even some chats and forums. This way, all your Dropbox space is free, and as long as you don’t run out of space, you should be happy enough. It all comes down to what you use Dropbox for.
A bonus to* student that have a .edu e-mail address is that you can get 500MB, instead of 250MB per invites by going to the Dropbox <3s School page. This will rais the limit of 8GB referral free space, to 16GB! These are some precious gigabytes, and will stay with you for the rest of your life (or until you delete your dropbox account).*
You can read about Dropbox referrals at Dropbox help - How much free referral space can I get?.
While you try and get your friends to sign up to Dropbox, using your referral, you can get 3 gigabytes of space by auto-uploading photos and videos. This is a new function and you can read more about it in the Dropbox blog post (challenge: say “Dropbox blog post” fast, 10 times in a row). Fill up your space first, with other than pictures. It is 2GB+250MB(bonus)+xMB (referrals). After you filled up that, with other stuff than photos, it is time to install Dropbox on your mobile phone. Dropbox supports Iphone, Ipad, Android and Blackberry. If you don’t have a phone that Dropbox supports, you can download a beta version of the desktop version. This version can be found in the Dropbox forums. At the time I’m writing this, version 1.3.19 is out and can be found in this post. Most of the bugs are corrected, and should be safe enough to download, but remember it is beta and neither Dropbox company or Goof Productions will take responsibility. If you don’t want to take any risks, there will probably soon be released a stable and official desktop version.
Now copy all your photos and videos you have taken with your camera, this can be your phone camera or another camera. If you don’t have enough space on your device, you can copy over what you have space for first, wait until Dropbox uploads it all, delete the copied files and copy over a new batch of files. Rinse and repeat. Just remember to enable the “Camera Upload” function under settings in the Dropbox application on your phone.
If you have 3 gigabytes of files, you will get the 3 gigabytes, but if not, you would have to wait until the “Camera Upload” function have uploaded 3 gigabytes, to get all the space you can.
The new “Camera Upload” function is pretty sweet. Google Plus app on Android and probably Iphone has the same function, but with dropbox you get it on your computer too. It is nice for when you copy pictures from your camera (that is not a phone). It’s an easy way to back-up any pictures, before you can get home and back them up on your other disks.
If you like this blog post, and now want to sign up for Dropbox, please use this referral: http://db.tt/85pRmn1T
[UPDATE] April 3rd, 2012
Dropbox announced that they are doubling the free space you get from referrals. You can invite up to 32 people for a total of 16 GB of extra free space. So you can now get a total of 21.25GB, use them wisely.
*After the update, there is no increase to students. Students will still get 500MB/referal. This is the same as a free account.
Sources:
[blog.dropbox.com] Your photos, simplified (Part 1)
[blog.dropbox.com] Dropbox referrals are now twice as nice!
[dropbox.com/edu] Dropbox <3s School!
