Dropbox has finally delivered on a long-awaited partnership with G Suite for native editing tools, and it definitely seems like it was worth the wait.
Dropbox Group Product Manager Josh Kaplan said in a blog post on Tuesday that the open beta — for now available only to Dropbox Business teams — allows a whole host of functions, including being able to store, create, and edit Google Slides, Sheets, and Docs within Dropbox.
You can also share and manage files in on the platform, and any comments made on a Google file hosted on Dropbox will alert you with a notification.
In addition, Dropbox will allow users to open and edit Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, or Word files using Google’s tools in Sheets, Slides, or Docs, respectively. Those files then can be saved back to the platform in their .xlsx, .pptx, or .docx file formats. Users will also be able to search for their Google files within Dropbox.
This has been a long time coming. Google and Dropbox announced in May of last year that a G Suite integration was forthcoming. Ritcha Ranjan, director of product management at Google Cloud, said in a statement at the time that the company’s goal was to “make G Suite accessible no matter what tools you bring to work, and these integrations help our shared customers better collaborate in the tools they use every day.”
In July, the two launched a Gmail-friendly Dropbox add-on to allow users to more easily access their Dropbox files while composing emails.
The open beta is currently available on its Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android apps for Dropbox Business folks. (Mobile users will be able to preview files “and make them available offline,” according to Dropbox.)
A spokesperson for Dropbox told Gizmodo by email that after signing up for the open beta, they’ll then “need to pair a G Suite account to use the integration.” You can access the open beta sign-up right here.
Following an eventual wider rollout “later this year,” Dropbox’s spokesperson said, the integration will be available to anyone with both Dropbox and Google accounts.
[Dropbox]