How To Use TimeTo™ with Dropbox or Google Drive

TimeTo™ is specially designed to optionally have both its program and information files contained in a Dropbox folder, Google Drive folder, or any other such folder sharing service. You'll also always have a backup in the cloud!

If you often move from one Windows computer to another (for example, one computer at the office and one computer at home), we recommend you install your entire TimeTo™ world onto a folder within a shared folder such as your Dropbox folder. TimeTo™ is especially designed so that you can put the entire program, data, and all settings into one such folder, that you can then launch from any Windows computer.

How much shared space or bandwidth will you need? TimeTo™ is intentionally quite space-efficient, and so the amount of shared space it will use will be trivial.

Installation: To fully install TimeTo™ for use on a shared folder, designate your Dropbox or Google Drive folder as the destination folder when running the TimeTo™ installer.

Migrating to a Dropbox or Google Drive folder: If you have already installed TimeTo™ elsewhere on your computer and wish to move it permanently to Dropbox or Google Drive, locate the existing folder where TimeTo™ is installed (typically the "c:\program files (x86)\TimeTo" folder , and move that entire folder into your Dropbox or Google Drive folder.

Preferences: All your preferences will automatically travel with you. You don't have to do anything special.

How do I launch TimeTo™ on a computer that I have not installed it upon? When you first use TimeTo on a computer that you did not install it on, there will not be an icon on the desktop or an entry in the Start menu for launching TimeTo. However, you can launch TimeTo™ by using Windows Explorer to navigate to the shared folder and then launch the file in the TimeTo folder called "TimeTo" (or "TimeTo.exe" if you have "Hide Extensions For Known File Types" unchecked in Windows Explorer ( Tools | Folder Options | View tab)). If you would like an icon on that computer for future launching, right-drag the TimeTo™ file to the desktop or Start menu, release, then choose "Create Shortcut Here". (TimeTo™ is smart enough to find your TimeTo™ data even when Dropbox or Google Drive is located in different places on each of your computers.)

Troubleshooting Dropbox:

Due to a change that Dropbox made to how files are stored, it is possible you may see the following error message when you use TimeTo in Dropbox: "TimeTo could not create its access lok file...". If so, here's a permanent workaround:

Shut down TimeTo.
Go to your \dropbox\TimeTo folder.
Delete the timedata.loc file (if it is there at all... it probably deleted itself when you closed TimeTo).
Create a New Folder in your \dropbox\TimeTo folder and name it "timedata.loc".
Go to Dropbox's Selective Sync options and tell Dropbox to ignore the new folder (this will also delete the folder, which is fine).
You should be good to go permanently (Dropbox will never sync any file (or folder!) called timedata.loc ... which is perfect).

(Why does this work? Dropbox has a hidden list of folders to never sync, and this is the roundabout way you can get it to avoid syncing any file... by getting that name onto that list even though it is not actually a folder).