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How to use Dropbox as a drop box
Answer
MIT faculty, students, and staff have access to MIT's Dropbox for Business subscription, giving you Dropbox storage of 10TB for faculty, 500GB for staff and students, and 100GB for affiliates during your tenure here. Dropbox is excellent for synchronizing files and sharing folders and files with project teams, research groups, etc.
However, sometimes you want to create an actual file drop box: a way for many people to submit or upload files to you, without having to explicitly share a folder with them.
For example, you might have several student teams nationwide participating in a competition and want them to upload project portfolios. But you don't want teams to see each other's work, nor do you want to require all of them to sign up for drop box accounts.
Or perhaps you want to invite many people to submit photos or ideas to your group, but do not know who those people might be. You just want to mail a link to your distribution list to invite them.
Dropbox has a new feature called Dropbox File Requests. You can find out more about it at https://www.dropbox.com/requests
This feature allows you to create a named request for file submission, for example "Everyone's Family Photos". Once you create the request, Dropbox will create a folder in your Dropbox account and generate a unique link that you can share with whomever you want. When a recipient clicks on the link, they will be taken to a Dropbox page, which will let them know the name of the request and your name. The page also presents them with a prominent Choose Files button, which allows them to upload files to your Dropbox folder. They will not need to have a Dropbox account to do so, nor will they be able to see the files in your Dropbox folder. It is simply a drop box.
