Dropbox adds auto-import from your camera

Dropbox is trying out a neat new feature that will give it magical Photo Stream-like abilities. Everybody’s favorite cloud-storage app has added photo and video import.

In a new “Experimental Forum Build” of the app for Windows, Mac and Linux, photos and videos will be slurped up from any memory card or camera connected to the computer. These will then be sent spinning off to the DropBox servers, ready for access by all your other Dropbox-connected devices.

There have already been some well reasoned complaints over in the Dropbox forums. For instance, some people might take so many photos that they don’t want them all clogging up their limited cloud storage. This feature also adds complexity to the Dropbox application itself, when it’s already pretty easy to have a third-party app store selected photos inside your Dropbox folder.

On the other hand, anything that makes backing up photos easier can only be a good thing. And as most nerds are at home right now enjoying Mom’s home cooking, mightn’t it be a good idea to make sure Mom’s precious photos are also stored somewhere a little safer than the hard drive of her rickety old PC?

I think it’s a great idea, although I won’t be recommending the feature to my parents until it makes it into an official non-beta build. And Dropbox has one big advantage over the current version of iCloud’s Photo Stream: You can delete those embarrassing Christmas photos.