The Dropbox Cross-Functional File Sharer

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A project manager, creative director, or department lead at a company that produces large files — design assets, video, documents, presentations — that need to move between internal teams and external partners. They use Dropbox because it works for people who aren't on their company's Google or Microsoft stack. It's the lowest-friction way to get a 2GB folder to a client or vendor who uses a PC, a Mac, or a Linux box, and doesn't have access to their internal SharePoint.

• →Share files and folders with external collaborators without access provisioning pain
• →Ensure the team is always working from the current version of a file
• →Find files quickly enough that "where is the latest version" is a question that has an answer

• —Version chaos — multiple people downloading, editing, and re-uploading creates
• —a naming convention disaster that no naming convention survives
• —External collaborators who can't find what they were shared or who it was shared by
• —Storage costs that scale faster than the organization's willingness to pay
• —Syncing issues that surface at the worst possible moment — the night before a deadline

• File organization is a cultural problem that tools can only partially solve
• Version control for creative files is still an unsolved problem and everyone pretends otherwise
• External collaboration should be frictionless — if the other person has to make an account,
• the friction has already failed

Uses Dropbox Business. Manages 5–20 shared folders across projects and clients. Shares externally via Dropbox link or folder access grant. Has 3–8 external collaborators with active Dropbox shares at any given time. Syncs Dropbox to their local machine on one computer; accesses via web on another. Has experienced sync conflicts — more than once. Has tried to establish a file naming convention for their team; it is followed by 60% of people, 70% of the time.

• →Version history surfacing that's accessible to non-technical users removes the
• →"which one is the final" archaeology project
• →Smart folder organization suggestions based on file type and project patterns
• →reduce the manual structure work that nobody maintains
• →External share links that don't require account creation remove the most
• →common friction point in client file delivery
• →Sync conflict resolution that names the conflicting parties (not just flags the file)
• →enables fast resolution without opening both versions

Pairs with `photoshop-primary-user` for the creative production and file delivery workflow. Contrast with `google-drive-user` to map the external collaboration vs. internal collaboration tool philosophy. Use with `burned-freelancer` for client file sharing and project handoff scenarios.