The Inside Scoop on the notorious “Out of Box”
June 18, 2013
In case you missed its release, “Out of Box” has been insisting on its very own feature blog highlighting its awesomeness. We agreed only because “Out of Box” really is that spectacular. It’s really similar to when amazing bands continue to make comebacks and go on tour; and you just keep going to see them because you’re loyal to great rock performers and hardcore, stellar computer syncing features.
Due to its overwhelming level of cool, you may have missed some of the key details during the “Out of Box” debut tour. But like all truly great bands… I mean… features, it’s back to show off what it can really do for you.
You’ve been using IDriveSync to sync all your files to the cloud as well as multiple mobile devices, right?
No? What! Well then, you need to click here and sign up for your free IDriveSync account complete with 10GB of space and the “Out of Box” feature.
Yes? Phew. Good. Well, then maybe you’re asking:
What’s so great about IDriveSync’s “Out of Box” feature?
- “Out of Box” is a folder (separate from the sync folder) in the cloud that holds your documents and files.
- “Out of Box” keeps your valuable folders safe without forcing you to move them to the sync folder.
So, what?, you think. What’s the big deal if my files are moved to the sync folder?
Well, this is especially beneficial for those large and complex folder hierarchies or the intricately complicated filing systems located on your computer. You can keep those where they are, but still back them up to the cloud.
Why is this useful?
Let’s go back to our music analogy. Let’s say you have 94 GB worth of music on your computer. That’s a lot of music. You have it all organized in a very specific way, alphabetically by artist and all in their proper folders and in their appropriate places. It’s orderly and just the way you like it. Now, let’s say that, for whatever reason, you would only like to backup a few of these sub folders. Perhaps you really only need to backup The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and David Bowie folders. If you store them to the sync folder, they’re taken out of your highly structured music folder hierarchy and placed in a separate location. NO!!!!! That’s awful. But, there is a way around this! You simply right click the folders you want to store in the cloud and select “Add to Out of Box.” Now The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and David Bowie folders are synced to the cloud, but also remain in their organized home amongst their fellow musicians in your computer’s music folder. Your files are backed up and safely synced to the cloud without having to move or change locations.
- “Out of Box” is also great for storing large amounts of data or files that you don’t access, change, or update on a regular basis. You can still access and download from other locations if you need to, but you won’t be taking up space in the sync folder on your linked computers and mobile devices. It’s just in the cloud for whenever you may need it. Like, when you’re at your coworker’s lame party and the music is just unbearable, you can sign into your IDriveSync account, download The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and David Bowie folders and save the night with your best Jagger dance moves.
- You can access your “Out of Box” folder via any computer (Windows or Mac) or your mobile device (iPhone, iPad, and Android). However, because they are safe in the cloud and only synced to your computer, each time you want to access them from another location, you will need to download them to that computer or device. If you make changes on a downloaded version, you will need to add that to the “Out of Box” folder.
- You can remove files or documents from the “Out of Box” folder at any time. It’s just a right click selection exactly like when you originally added the files.
Don’t miss out on the greatness of “Out of Box.” If you still have questions, check out the FAQ page. And make sure to tell your friends before they tell you about it. Then you can say, “I knew about ‘Out of Box’ back before they were even famous.” Sorry, I just can’t get off this band reference.
Whether your preference is rock ‘n’ roll, hip hop, classical, oldies, new age, punk, funk, oldies, techno, disco… or whatever… just remember to always Rock Out (of Box).
We know there’s always a concern about privacy when you upload stuff to cloud services. Luckily, we’ve got a way for you to keep your digital goodies under lock and key. Literally.
New accounts with IDriveSync now have the option of Private Key Encryption. This new feature will allow users to encrypt their data with AES-256bit encryption with a key known only to them. That means no-one but you can access it. Not us. Not hackers. Not the government. Not even the Borg.
Well, maybe the Borg, but even they’d have trouble.
Here’s how it works
Think of encrypted data like a jigsaw puzzle. Unencrypted, the puzzle is complete and easy to understand. Encryption jumbles the pieces all up, but puts numbers on the back so they can be reorganized easily. We’re using AES-256 bit encryption, which is basically the most difficult jigsaw puzzle ever devised. Private Key Encryption means those numbers are invisible to everyone, except the person with the key (that’s you!).
How to get started
When you create a new account, you’ll have the option for Default Encryption or Private Key Encryption. (what’s the difference?).
Once you select Private Key Encryption, you’ll be asked to enter a key. The key is like a password; it can be anything you want it to be, but you should keep a copy of it in a safe place or else you’ll lose access to your data. We don’t store your key on our servers, so if you lose it… It’s gone.
You’ll be prompted for that key the next time you log in (See? We told you not to forget it!) so that we can retrieve your data. Otherwise, you’ll only be able to access your account through your connected devices (like the IDriveSync phone or desktop app) if you are already logged in on those devices.
You can create private encrypted accounts from your iOS and Android apps as well.
If it is not stored on our servers, how is it verified?
IDriveSync does not store your private encryption key directly on its servers. We use a special technique to further encrypt your private encryption key so that it can be used only for verification purposes and cannot be retrieved by anyone.
Do we store the key on devices?
On your Mac and Windows machines and mobile devices, your private encryption key is stored encrypted for repeat usage so that you don’t have to provide the key every time you access.
How sharing works
Since your data is stored in an encrypted format with a key known only to you, you cannot share your data as is. However, by allowing us to store an encrypted version of your private key (with explicit permission), seamless sharing of files and folders can be enabled so recipients can access and view data shared with them.
If private key is stored for sharing (with permission), what happens next?
You have the option to clear the encryption key stored for sharing purposes.
After you disable all shared access to your account data from the share management screen on IDriveSync’s website, you will have an option to clear the encryption key from our database. To do this, log in to your account and go to Activity > Shares. From there you can delete all share activity by clicking the 
beside each shared file or folder.
Once all shares are deleted, you will be presented with an option to clear your encryption key.
APIs now support Private key Encryption
IDriveSync now supports Private Key Encryption for its publicly available APIs as well. Here is an example of a REST API call to upload a file using private encryption.
Syntax for ‘uploadFile’ API:
https:// <server address>/evs/uploadFile
Server address:
Use getServerAddress API to retrieve the IDriveSync server address.
HTTP method: POST
Input parameters:
| id | username or email address |
| pwd | password |
| pvtkey | private encryption key is an optional parameter and is not required if you opt for the default encryption key during your IDriveSync account sign up |
| p | location (folder path) in your account where the file will get uploaded. |
For more details on APIs, please see IDriveSync APIs.
We think IDriveSync now provides the best option for privacy and security with the username / password based access to cloud storage and sync, and the optional private key encryption. So if you need place to store your top secret information (like, say, a cache of video and pictures of a popular human activity that might raise a few eyebrows if found on your hard drive) with absolute privacy, IDriveSync has you covered. With Out of Box Sync, better performance, better pricing, single link sharing for multiple data items and timeline view for media, we are trying to offer a unique and a compelling solution.
Feel free to share your feedback!
IDriveSync Team
IDriveSync at RSA Conference 2013
February 15, 2013
IDriveSync is excited to announce participation in the most comprehensive forum on information security – the annual RSA Conference at San Francisco, from February 25th to Mar 1st. Come visit us at booth 359 at Moscone center.
We will be making some key announcements that will transform the way people think about online data synchronization. We will also be featuring our latest product offerings that are truly pushing forward the future of online data storage.
It will be a perfect opportunity for you to come and check out if our online services are a viable option for your data storage and sync needs. We will be happy to help you with your queries.
If you’re not going to be at the event, you can still receive the latest updates from the event on our twitter page, @IDrive_Online.
Take a trip down memory lane with timeline!
January 23, 2013
We recently released ‘Timeline’ for photos which makes your photo viewing experience better than ever. Timeline sorts all photos and videos in your account synced from all your devices chronologically by months, and displays them on our beautifully designed gallery. Now you can easily find that photo which was taken during the summer vacation at your aunt’s place or a video taken at your friend’s new year party.
Here are few tips on how to use this feature:
On the Home Page, click on the ‘Timeline’ icon.
You will now be able see photos displayed neatly by month. You can click on any photo to enlarge it and can continue browsing through all of them.
One link to rule them all!
January 11, 2013
So here’s the problem, how many times have you guys wanted to share only a few photos from an album with few of your friends but still keep all the photos for yourself? Did you end up creating new folders, duplicated files, or multiple share links to solve this? Now with IDriveSync’s single link for multiple files share feature, this is as easy as it can get! What this means is that you can select multiple files (or folders) and share them using a single link, this would also allow your friends to view your shares easily.
Here’s how it works:
Select few files you want to share, and click on ‘Share’.
You can see that a single link has been generated for all these files. To see how your friends would see the album, click on Preview Link button.
You can see that only the selected files will appear.
And that’s how easy it is. So don’t ever fret about sharing your files again!
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter so that you don’t miss out on our new features and updates.
Thinking Outside the Box
January 7, 2013
Our latest update comes with a very useful and nifty feature called ‘Out of Box’. Out of Box lets you sync any folder on your computer to IDriveSync without having to move it to the IDriveSync folder!
Data uploaded through Out of Box will only be synced to the cloud and you can access it anytime through the web or on your mobile devices. It is especially useful for data which you don’t access daily but want easy access to from any computer, such as your previous semester projects, photo and video collections, etc.
So, how does it work? It’s really simple – right-click any file or folder on your computer, navigate to IDriveSync and click ‘Add this folder to Out of Box’.
To manage Out of Box data, click on Out of Box from the IDriveSync menu.
From here you can add more folders or files to your Out of Box, disable sync for files/folders already added, and also download items synced from other computers. For example, if you synced a folder ‘Home Project’ on your Windows laptop and want to access it on your Mac, you can find your Windows laptop on the right side and navigate to ‘Home Project’, select, and click the ‘Download’ button.
For web access, log in to your account and simply click on ‘Out of Box’ at the top of the screen to view all the devices you have synced data from. Folders synced from your computers can be can be accessed, downloaded, and shared easily from here.
Install our latest desktop clients and update your mobile apps now to take full advantage of all our new features!
New Features – Better Referrals, Folder Uploads, Zip Downloads, Gallery, Performance Tweaks
December 1, 2012
Hi everyone,
Over the last couple of weeks, as you might have noticed, we have been making many changes and updates to our website and today we are really excited because our all new referral system has just went live! This comes with storage incentives which all you guys can enjoy and also now you can accumulate more space than ever by just recommending IDriveSync to your friends. Here’s a summary of how this works and also below is a list of our last few releases. If any of you have tried any of these features, let us know what you think of them!
Referral incentives
You can now not only recommend IDriveSync to your friends through more channels like Facebook, Twitter, etc but when your friends join, both of you will earn a reward of 1GB storage which will be added to your account automatically. You can either send personal invites by email or you can share the referral link with all your friends on Facebook and Twitter. We also give you an extra bonus of 500MB when you like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter! Here’s how you can start:
As soon as you log in to your account, click on the ‘Get more space’ icon.
There will be a variety of tasks here through which you can earn more storage. And the more tasks you complete, the more storage you earn!
You can even see how much space is left for you to earn in this graph:
Folder upload
You can now upload folders directly by either selecting Upload Folder option just beneath the Home button or by simply dragging a folder from your desktop and dropping it on our website. (Supported only on Chrome browser)
Gallery view
Our new Gallery view is beautifully designed to highlight all your photos by presenting them on a black background. You can click any image and see this display, and you can also perform actions on your file from here itself.
To view all images present in the folder, just click the ‘Gallery view’ icon in the menu options present below the picture.
Another way to reach the Gallery is by clicking this icon 
present beside the search bar. Please note that this option appears only when there are image or video files present in the folder you are viewing.
Multiple folder download
This was one of our most requested features and as we promised you can now easily download folders from within your account – just right click on a folder or click the 
button to see the Download option.
You can also select multiple folders at a time and download them together as a zip file.
We hope you enjoy all these features. In addition, we have done numerous performance tweaks for various operations. And as always, keep following our blog for more updates!
