The Boox has a built-in function to sync (the PDFs created from) notes to DropBox, but you can’t choose which DropBox folder to sync to and nor can you choose which notebook to sync: you either sync all your notebooks or none at all. These restrictions don’t suit my workflow. Furthermore, as well as syncing my notes, I want to sync other reading material such as annotated PDFs. To achieve this, I use the DropSync app (note: there are also versions of this app for other cloud services).
The DropSync app can be downloaded from the Google Play store (once you’ve enabled this on your Boox device), and I’d recommend paying the small amount for the Pro version which gives you the full functionality. Note, as with all apps downloaded from the Google Play store onto Boox, you will find it easier to work with them if you optimise them for the e-ink display.
- Long press on the icon in the Apps screen
- Choose Optimize
- Remove the tick from ‘Whiten Apps Background’ (or you can keep it ticked and play with the settings until you find what works best for you).
In the most simple terms, this app syncs the folders of your choice on your Boox device with the folders of your choice in your DropBox. So, to set this up:
- Open the DropSync app
- Choose ‘synced folders’
- Press the add button (the big plus sign)
- Choose the folder in DropBox that you want to sync to (this has to already exist)
- Choose the local folder on the Boox device (see below).
And that’s it, for a basic sync. By default this will sync the selected Boox folder and its subfolders – you can uncheck this if you only want to sync the Boox folder itself.
So, where do files exist on the Boox device in order to set up this sync?
Notes
Let’s first take a look at notes, those that are created from the Boox Notes app. It’s important to realise that what we are syncing here are PDFs that are generated from these notebooks, not the editable notes themselves. In order to ensure that PDFs are indeed being generated, go into the Notes app, go to settings (the three lines at the top right of the Notes home page) and make sure ‘Automatically generate PDF files after exiting a notepad’ is ticked.
Now, whenever you exit a notebook, a PDF will generated in a subfolder of Storage /note. The subfolder structure will match the folders and notebooks you’ve set up in your notebook app, so if you want all your notes to sync with DropSync, choose the root ‘note’ folder and make sure you haven’t ticked ‘exclude subfolders’.
PDFs and other reading material
For content you are adding to your Boox device, such as PDFs and other reading material, there’s a ‘Books’ folder already provided, or you can create your own folder in Storage. You can of course create a subfolder structure that works for you.
And that’s it! There are more advanced options, such different directions of sync, and also the ability to exclude and include files with a certain pattern in their name (you could exclude files of a particular file type, for example, or those notebooks with ‘temp’ in their name) but the above steps should get you up and running with basic syncing from a Boox device to DropBox.