Five ways for new freelancers to get the most out of Sync

First of all, a congratulations is in order: You’ve broken the shackles of your soul-crushing, nine-to-five job, and you’re breathing the sweet air of making your own schedule and working in pajamas. Three cheers for you!

Sync makes it easy to securely store your data — and your clients’ data — without worrying about snooping competitors, attachment size limits, and complex networking.

Here are five easy tips to get you started using Sync to its fullest.

1. Create a secure drop-off location to eliminate huge email attachments

One of the first headaches you’ll experience as a freelancer is how to take custody of the enormous files that your customers want to send you. Photo libraries, presentations, and PDFs can be too large (and sometimes too sensitive) to send via email.

Of course, if your customer already has Sync, it’s easy for them to just share the appropriate folder with you. If not, it might be worth it to create a separate “drop-off” Sync account with a different email address. Sync’s 5GB free account is perfect for this: Create an account specifically for this purpose, and give your customer the username and password. (Just remember to change passwords after they’re done.) They can upload all the files they need to just by dragging and dropping.

For extra ease-of-use, you can create a shared folder in the “drop-off” account, and share it with yourself! That way, files that your client uploads to that folder will be automatically copied to your own Sync account.

2. Share tax information safely

In the United States especially, the exchange of the W-9 is an exchange of information oftentimes complicated by the sensitivity of the details the form contains — your name, address, and social security number. It’s not something you want to email, that’s for sure. Until Sync came along, the most secure way to send a W-9 was to fax it — and who has time to head back to 1991 and do that?

Instead, Sync makes it easy to share tax documents securely. Simply copy the document into Sync, and share a secure link with your customer. You can even send the encryption key to the document separately for added security. The transmission of the document is secure from tip to tail, and as long as the encryption key is kept separate from the link to the file, there’s no way someone peeking at your email can surreptitiously download it.

3. Automatic version control

How many times have you deleted a file accidentally? We’ve lost count. In addition to having a solid local backup strategy, Sync keeps copies of every revision of every file that you save — and with Pro accounts, we save the revisions forever. Knowing a safe copy of your files is in the cloud helps you sleep better.

So don’t worry if your cat accidentally overwrites your entire manuscript with a;jknjkjjjjjjjjjjjjj — Sync has you covered. In your Sync control panel, just click the triangle next to the file you want to inspect, and choose View History. You’ll be able to restore prior versions from there.

4. Send files to customers on the go

You’re at lunch, and another customer urgently needs a file. Normally, you’d have to stall for time to finish your sandwich, get back to your computer, and send the file over.

Instead, if your files are all in Sync, just send a secure link instead — even if it’s a whole folder of files. You can do this from the web-based control panel, or soon from either our iOS or Android app.

5. Go Pro to get more storage

If you put your entire business in Sync, chances are you’ll eat up your free 5GB pretty quickly. It’s a good thing Sync offers inexpensive Pro accounts that give you up to 1TB of storage — all for less than Dropbox Pro.

With all that room to roam for your largest files, you’ll never have to worry about running out of space again.