A good way for WhatsApp and Dropbox to share your photos
Q. I have WhatsApp on my Samsung Galaxy 5 Android phone and want to send pictures from Dropbox, but it does not appear as a choice. Is there a way to do this?
A. For readers who may not be aware, WhatsApp is a popular messaging application for mobile devices and Dropbox is a cloud-based file-storage solution that people use to make data available on multiple internetconnected devices. WhatsApp is primarily used to share data from the device that has the application installed. That would include any photos or documents on the phone or tablet.
But I can see where you might want to have access to a larger library of data, like that stored on a service like Dropbox.
The key to making this work is to install the Dropbox application on your device. Once installed, run the application and log into your Dropbox account.
Now open WhatsApp and tap the button in the chat text field and tap the Photo/Video Library option.
When the file browser that allows you to choose your photos and videos opens, and up pops the familiar interface for browsing photos and videos, you should see an option at the bottom that says Choose from another app. Select that and you will be presented with the option to choose Dropbox or any other file storage application such as Google Drive, iCloud Drive or OneDrive if you have them installed.
Keep in mind that this is only possible in the latest, greatest version of WhatsApp.
If you have an older version, you will not see these options. This is another reason to keep your apps updated as features and bug fixes are often pushed out as the application is updated.
Lee co-hosts “Technology Bytes,” 8 to 10 p.m. Wednesdays, on KPFT 90.1 FM and at geekradio.com. helpline@chron.com blog.chron.com/helpline