Now with Cubby gone, I’ve just switched to using a VPN (12VPN) and Dropbox (which works fine with Scrivener for me). VPN is complex in China as most Western companies are actively blocked or accounts are difficult to buy for Chinese people. Good VPNs are still constantly changing servers and stealth techniques to work round the GFWoC and do sometimes just stop working now and then. For most students paying for a VPN is a non-trivial cost.
Resilio seems a neat way to sync your computers, but its dependence on constant uptime of all nodes makes it not ideal for collaboration of an edited document, or even syncing between home and work (where computer may be on or off). There is a reason an intermediate cloud server is so useful.
I haven’t tried Box for quite a while, but remember not liking it much when I tried it.
Sync.com with 5GB free looks very nice and not too much more expensive than dropbox (similar to the very expensive Tresorit, they both offer end-to-end encryption). I may try sync.com when I get some free time.
Strange. When I look at the Box page and look at the alternative plans it is separated between personal and business accounts. Personal accounts are free, up to 5 Gb.
True, and I have one, but you have to have a business account to be able to use the Mac desktop sync app. I can use it as a storage repository through the web-browser interface, but that’s no good for active Scrivener projects, which I need for collaborating with Shirley. I have set up Sync as recommended by Graybyrd and will give it a try.
Can download from the Swedish site, but get this on trying to log in …
Tried to open a chat session, sent my question, someone answered asking how could he help … and promptly terminated the chat session! I am severely displeased.
Conversely, Sync installed without problem, I made a mistake setting up the account so got in touch with support. Quick answer, immediate solution by instant return of email … polite, friendly, efficient.
I’ve been using it on two Macs for some time and don’t have a business account.
You do need to sign up to a personal account same as with DropBox. The free account is 10Gb with a max upload of 250Mb which covers me, but YMMV. The starting page is here - you need the personal account.
I have an account; it gives me 10GB and 250MB max upload, but I can only use it through the web interface. The only other thing that I can imagine is that my problem comes from having set up my account about 6 years ago while I was in China, and it is that that is blocking the whole thing. I appreciate all your help, but it’s getting me nowhere with the account that I have. The only solution might be to try setting up a new account with a different log-in and see what happens, but that wouldn’t help with collaborating with Shirley who is in China. So, for the moment, I’m not sure I can be bothered.
I’m wondering if there are different installers for the Free and Pro versions. You may be correct regarding China but where did you download the version of Box Sync that you tried? If you login to your account via the web interface, go to ‘my name’ at the top right and in the dropdown navigate down to ‘get Box Sync’. If you open that in a new tab you should get a page at the top left of which is ‘Get Box sync for Mac’. Downloading that gives you an installer. That should work, but if it doesn’t I’m out of ideas.
@Tacitus, if you look at the screenshot in my last post, you’ll see that I have done that, and I don’t get a “Get Box Sync” option.
@Briar Kit, I have checked: my account, called “Individual” but the upgrade is called “Enterprise”. In the profile, all they have is my name, my email address—which is a .com domain, and that might be one of the problems as the help phone number I get is a US number, while looking at their website here gives me a UK number—the account number and my London phone number. Those are the only required entries; there is nothing actually to link me to China.
But the problem remains. I can close that account and open a new one, but if the only way for Shirley to access it in China is through a VPN, there’s no point as we could simply use Dropbox on that basis, which would also allow her to use Scrivener on her iPad if she wanted.
So, as she says Sync is working, we’ll go with a free account there.
Very late to this thread, but just thought I’d chime in to say that I’ve been using Sync for the last 18 months and am quite happy with it.
It’s not all roses and sunshine. For a start, unlike Cubby, it is limited to a dedicated local folder (just like Dropbox). It’s desktop app syncs wonderfully, but all but the most basic of its file sharing magic has to be done via a web interface. The web interface is functional, but not efficient. Its iOS app sucks (it 's really that bad). Officially it links into iOS file services, but I can only get it to work maybe one time in three. Unlike both Cubby and Dropbox, the options for 3rd party apps are very limited (none as far as I can recall).
On the other hand, it is very secure. Secure enough to meet Australian online privacy requirements so that I can use it to share files with clients and colleagues. In my field, that is crucial.
Even with its limitations, Sync has become my number one cloud app and is my Cubby replacement. For the few Cubby features it doesn’t do that I need, I use iCloud Drive and, occasionally, Dropbox. When it’s long -rumoured iOS update is released, I’m hopeful that I can further reduce my reliance on those two supplementary apps.
I can’t fathom why you see something different to me, but that’s software for you.