Thirty-six hours ago, the recently founded software development firm Wappwolf launched Dropbox Automator, which is sort of like an IFTTT for Dropbox. IFTTT, for those of you not up to speed on the latest Internet trends (where have you been?!), is a pretty amazing online tool that automates tasks to trigger when a particular action has occurred. For example: when my Facebook profile picture changes, update my Twitter profile pic too; email me when Amazon posts its free Android app of the day; text me when a get a new email; etc.
Like IFTTT, Dropbox Automator is capable of triggering a similar series of actions, based on what kind of files have been added to your Dropbox folders.
In IFTTT, these actions are called “Recipes,” but in Dropbox Automator, they’re called “automations.” Not only are they trigged by file type (e.g. a photo, a .doc, a PDF, etc.), they’re also triggered based on which Dropbox folder the file has been placed into.
For documents, you can choose from actions like convert to PDF, convert PDF to text, summarize, translate, upload to Google Docs, upload to Slideshare and more. Photos can be uploaded to Facebook, Flickr, rotated, annotated with text, a map or a logo, have effects applied, and downscaled.
Any file can be emailed, zipped, renamed, FTP’d, encrypted or decrypted, saved to another Dropbox, tweeted, or set as a Facebook status.
The only problem I had with the service is that the results were not immediate, as I expected. It took a good ten minutes for photos to show up on Flickr, for example. The speed of other actions may vary based on the processing speed required and the current server load. (The company says its new and improved server engine will be ready next week.)
If speed is of a concern, then this service is not ideal…at least not in its present form. But if you’re simply automating stuff that you don’t want to forget to do later on (e.g. put photos on Flickr, upload to Google Docs), then Dropbox Automator could be quite the useful tool.
Since its launch barely two days ago, the company has signed up 1,500 users on the platform. Given Dropbox’s popularity and the loyal, nerdy following of IFTTT, my guess is they’re about to get a bunch more.
You can try out Dropbox Auotmator for yourself from here.
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