With that technical bit out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks and take a look at the most fundamental feature of Dropbox: the Dropbox folder. The account that you create with Dropbox automatically includes a Dropbox folder (you can only have one per account) that shares files with other devices that have the Dropbox client installed and connected to your account.

If you happened to watch the promotional video on the Dropbox website you'll know that they refer to their service as a "magic pocket" that is always with you and contains whatever you place in it. This is an apt description. The folder itself looks like a completely normal folder and will be displayed as such on your computer. Anything that you place into this folder is automatically made available in the

Dropbox folder of any other computer or device that is associated with your account. You don't have to do anything to make this synchronization occur: just drop the file into the folder the rest happens automatically.

Your Dropbox folder will contain two separate sub-folders when you first open it. The first is called Photos. The Photos folder's use is obvious - it is meant to store photos! Dropbox includes a Photos folder by default because the service lets you view your photos online by navigating to www.dropbox.com/photos and entering your login information. The photos that you have placed into your Photo folder will be listed in your web browser. The sub-folders in the main Photo folder will be displayed as albums and photos that are not organized into sub-folders will be displayed individually.

The second pre-configured folder is the Public folder. This folder is designed to make sharing individual files easy. This folder, along with Dropbox's other files sharing features, is explored in Chapter 4 of this guide.

The default Photos and Public folders are important to Dropbox's functionality and should not be deleted. You can, however, add as many other folders as you'd like. The structure of your folders will be automatically replicated on other devices on which you've installed Dropbox. For example, let's say I create a new folder on my desktop PC called Stuff, and inside that folder I create a sub-folder called Things. A new folder called Stuff will be automatically created on my laptop, and a sub-folder called Things will automatically be created inside it.