We’re living in interesting times. For the past couple of months, there has been a dramatic shift to remote business and a new wave of “how to be effective working from home” articles. Likewise, people have started testing out more and more apps and services to set up their remote workstations. pCloud can be a very helpful tool when you are looking for a way to maximize your productivity. If you still haven’t tested its countless possibilities, let us give you some quick tips, that will make your workflow more effective even while working from a slightly unusual location such as your own living room.
Tip #1: Setting up pCloud Drive
Our desktop app pCloud is your best friend when it comes to organizing your work files and saving space on your hard drive. It’s also a great tool if you’re working from your personal laptop and you want to separate work from personal life. Setting up pCloud Drive on your computer is super easy. Just visit our download page, click the Download button and then follow the instructions for the actual installation… et voilà! You just extended your local HDD space with up to 2 TB of secure cloud storage. Now continue working with your files, as if they were stored on your computer using all your other apps to manage them.
Moving your files to your pCloud account can also be done in just a few easy steps. There is a super handy option in pCloud Drive that can help you immensely – it’s called Sync. This powerful feature allows you to link local folders on your computer with pCloud Drive. This way you can be sure that all the changes you make to documents locally are saved also in the cloud and are ready to use on all other devices from which you access your pCloud account. Just remember, pCloud Sync is active both ways – this means that if you delete a synced file or folder from your pCloud account, it will be gone also on your computer. So make sure to stop your Sync before deleting anything. Here is a practical guide on how to best use pCloud Drive and pCloud Sync, if you need further information.
Tip #2: File sharing
Now that you are not in the same physical space with your colleagues or clients, you are most likely sharing a ton of files. Some of which may be also very confidential. pCloud has you covered here, as well. There are plenty of file sharing options you can choose from. And yes, there are far better (and secure) ways to do that than emails, trust us.
Download Links: To share a Download link to your pCloud files is a piece of cake (pun intended, we know you had too many of those lately). Here’s how it goes:
- Just right click on the file you want to share
- Choose the Share option from the context menu
- Click on Copy download link
- Your Download link is generated and ready to be sent to anyone!
The best part is that your recipient won’t need a pCloud account to view or download your content. To make file sharing extra secure you can set a password and an expiration date to your download link. You can also see when your content was downloaded with detailed stats.
There is also an option to make your Download link extra boujee by personalizing it with your own background image, title, and description. It’s called Branding and it can be activated it any time from pCloud’s web platform under my.pcloud.com. Super handy if you are sending your work to clients, right?
Invite to folder: Another option that allows you to collaborate easier with your colleagues is a shared folder. Use the Invite to folder option to give other pCloud users access to your files. It’s a great way to work together without losing control of your work because you can easily decide who can view, edit or manage the files that you are sharing.
Upload Link: With pCloud you can also invite others to upload files to your account. Say you need someone to upload one or multiple files directly to your pCloud account. Generate a unique Upload link and send it to them on Facebook, through email, or text message. Now they can upload whatever it is that you need, even if they don’t have a pCloud account.
Advanced sharing options: If you need more advanced sharing options, check out pCloud Business. With a Business account you can easily perform External Sharing and Company Sharing. And for the highly confidential information, you can use Crypto Shares, which allows you to share information from your Crypto folder. Still don’t use pCloud Crypto for Business? Here is a handy guide to get you started with encrypted collaboration.
Tip #3: Collaborating effectively
While we’re on the collaboration part, let’s talk a bit more about pCloud Business. Apart from the advanced file-sharing options, using a Business account has a lot to offer when it comes to collaborating more effectively. Migrating your team to the cloud is easy. Invite everyone to join your new pCloud Business account and add them to teams with shared folders. Make sure everyone gets access only to the files they need. You can easily control what gets shared within and outside your company with specialized share settings. Using pCloud Business allows you to always have access to the latest version of every file from the web, desktop, and mobile application. You can also take the opportunity to add your comments to files and folders. This way you can avoid using unsecured chat platforms. Don’t be afraid that you can miss important information, because you will get notified when someone uploads or edits a document in one of your shared folders. To make sure pCloud Business is the right tool for your company, you can give it a try for 30 days completely free of charge by contacting our team, there’s also a Live Chat option on the website if you still have some questions.
Tip #4: Working offline
Sometimes your internet connection is not that fast and stable as in the office. But this doesn’t have to stop you from doing the best you can. Thanks to pCloud Drive you can also work on your files while you’re not connected to the internet. Adding your files for offline access is not rocket science, especially if you already mastered the file-syncing option.
- Just select a folder you want to access offline
- Right-click & choose “Offline Access (sync)” from the context menu
- Then choose a local folder and click “Add sync”. Easy-peasy!
You can do the same also on your smartphone if you were smart enough to install our mobile app on it. Adding offline access to your data is the same as temporarily downloading it on your phone. Open the app and mark the files you want to access offline and tap the Star (offline) icon. By doing so, you can view and play any piece of information offline. Goodbye failing Internet connection and hello work-ready documents.
On a more personal note, try to stick to a routine that helps you stay productive and motivated. And remember, just because you don’t go to the office doesn’t mean you’re doing a worse job. In fact, maybe the opposite is true for you?