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The response to the release of Quicksand has been phenomenal. Since it was launched about three months ago, Quicksand has received fantastic reviews and been picked up by some pretty high-profile sites. For new visitors, Quicksand is a free app of mine which lets you automatically sync your recently opened files with the cloud!
To start with, lets look at Quicksand’s amazing users. Quicksand rapidly spread around the internet, and got several hundred users within a week of its launch. We can now boast of around 450 users a day taking advantage of Quicksand’s great features. People use the app from all over the world, from over 70 different countries, as you can see in the overflowing chart to the right (click for a larger, interactive version).
Interestingly, Quicksand’s use picks up over the working week quite noticeably and then drops down over the weekend, which suggests that many people are using the app at work. This is a great testament to how well people trust and appreciate Quicksand.
Speaking of appreciation, Quicksand has received fantastic coverage in by the media. Mac AppStorm rated the app 9 out of 10 stars, and wrote the following:
If you work at all with cloud syncing services such as Dropbox, then Quicksand is a must-have. Quicksand is a seemingly simple app that could potentially save you a lot of time and inconvenient situations.
– Mac AppStorm
Idealog, a New Zealand magazine, interviewed me about my projects, and commented that “Quicksand tackles a problem that hasn’t been addressed by Silicon Valley giants like Dropbox and Google.” Other websites including MacWorld Norway and AddictiveTips also published very positive reviews. Users also responded very warmly to Quicksand, and it currently has a 5 star rating on MacUpdate.
In conclusion, I’m very happy with Quicksand’s success so far. It took a lot of work to develop, but it’s been truly fantastic to see the reaction online. I’ve got a couple more exciting new features on the way, and I look forward to continuing my journey syncing deeper into Quicksand.
It is with much pleasure that I announce the release of my new free app, Quicksand — the easiest way to sync your recently opened files with the cloud.
Quicksand lives quietly in your Mac’s menubar. Whenever you open or edit a file, Quicksand automatically copies it to a special folder synced with your favourite cloud storage solution (all Mac cloud storage solutions, including Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive, are supported).
With traditional cloud storage solutions, only files within a special folder were synced, and you had to plan in advance to make sure that you had the files you needed. Quicksand makes this all so much easier, because you don’t have to think about what you sync with the cloud — Quicksand takes care of it all for you by automatically syncing your 50 most recently opened files.
Because Quicksand syncs with the cloud storage solution you already use, you get to take advantage of the full power of the cloud, with amazingly useful features like undelete and revision history.
To learn more about Quicksand, watch the video below, then visit the Quicksand page to download the app and revolutionise the way that you interact with the cloud.
I’ve been working really hard over the past few months on an exciting new app for Macs. I feel it’s coming close to being ready for public use, but I want to make sure that it’s as perfect as it can be before I release it.
To do this, I need some beta testers. I’ve already got some, but I would like more! If you are interested in getting your hands on some pre-release software, reporting bugs, and eventually getting the app for free, please send me a message mentioning which version of Mac OS X you are running.
Edit: Thanks to everyone who replied. I’ve got enough beta testers for now, and I’ll be sure to let you know if I need any more!
Edit 2: Quicksand, my new app, has now been released! Check it out here.
Today MacDropAny passed an amazing milestone: a grand total of 160,000 folders synced to the cloud. Since MacDropAny was released in February 2011, it’s been used by thousands of people in over 80 countries.
People love MacDropAny because it just works. It’s by far the most simple way to sync any folder on your Mac with a number of great cloud syncing services, allowing you to gain access to your important files from wherever you are.
Recently, with the release of version 2, more sync services were added so that MacDropAny now supports syncing with Dropbox, Box.com, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, and iClouDrive. To support MacDropAny’s international user base, version 2 added support for French, Dutch, Spanish and German, making it even easier for people all over the world to use.
Here are some interesting statistics about MacDropAny:
I’ve received some fantastic feedback about MacDropAny. It’s rated 4.5 out of 5 stars on MacUpdate.com, and has been well reviewed in MacWorld, LifeHacker, Applesfera (in Spanish), Me Cambio a Mac (in Spanish) and many more sites.
None of this would have been possible without the amazing support of MacDropAny’s users and the amazing people who donate to help support continued development. MacDropAny is free, and this is only possible because of users’ kind generosity. I’d like to thank everyone who has donated, tweeted, blogged, helped with bug testing and translated for me – without you guys, MacDropAny wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is today.
MacDropAny is constantly evolving (and hopefully improving too!). If you’ve got a suggestion for a new feature, a new service to sync folders with, or just want to say hello, please feel free to send me a message.
Thanks,
Sebastian Hallum Clarke (MacDropAny’s 15 year old developer)
I’m happy to announce that iClouDrive, my free app which lets you sync folders between your Macs using your iCloud account, has just been updated to v1.14 with translations into both Spanish (thanks to Fernando Sánchez!) and French.
This means that many more people will be able to use iClouDrive in their native language. If you’d like to help with translating one of my apps into your language, please contact me!
You can download the latest version on the iClouDrive page of my website.
The latest version of iClouDrive, v1.13, now has a cool custom icon (created by Ian Bauters) in the Finder! You can download this update from the iClouDrive page of my website.
If you’ve already installed iClouDrive, and you want to get this cool icon, please just download the latest version, and run it again. Your files will not be deleted, and you’ll get the cool icon.
This is a video walkthrough of how to sync any folder on your computer with the cloud, using MacDropAny, my free app.
I’m very happy to report that with the release of MacDropAny v2.03 last night, MacDropAny is now available in a total of four languages; French, Dutch, German and (of course) English.
I’d like to extend a big thank you to the great translators, Leander Stellemans for Dutch and Thomas Schulze for German, who have helped me to bring MacDropAny to the native languages of many more users. Someone has kindly offered to translate MacDropAny into Spanish, and I expect to have this included in an update soon.
If you speak another language, and would be willing to spend about 15 minutes translating some MacDropAny into your native language, please get in touch. At the moment, I’m especially keen to get an Italian translation, but all languages will be happily accepted.
Update (23 Nov 2012): Thanks to Fernando Sánchez, MacDropAny v2.05 is now available in Spanish! You can get the latest version here.
Version 2.01 of MacDropAny, the easiest way to sync any folder on your computer with the cloud, was released today. This update adds a Dutch localization (thanks to Leander Stellemans!) and also fixes a bug which caused a fatal error message to appear if a duplicate folder was about to be made.
You can get the latest update on the MacDropAny page.