Turn Your Dropbox Into a Website

Your Dropbox folder already holds your documents, notes, drafts, and ideas. What if saving a file there also meant publishing it to the web?

Connect your Dropbox, create a folder, write markdown files, and save them. Each file becomes a page on your website. Edit a file and the changes appear in seconds. Delete a file and the page is gone. Your folder is your website.

No code. No CMS dashboard. No deploy button. Save is publish.

#How It Works

#1. Connect Dropbox

Sign up for FolderPress and connect your Dropbox account. FolderPress creates a folder called Apps/FolderPress/ in your Dropbox — this is where your sites live.

#2. Create a Site

Create a new site from the FolderPress dashboard. This creates a subfolder in your Dropbox:

Apps/FolderPress/my-blog/

Your site is immediately live at my-blog.folderpress.com.

#3. Write and Save

Create markdown files in that folder:

Apps/FolderPress/my-blog/
  posts/
    hello-world.md
    my-second-post.md

Each file becomes a page:

• hello-world.md → my-blog.folderpress.com/posts/hello-world
• my-second-post.md → my-blog.folderpress.com/posts/my-second-post

#4. That’s It

There is no step 4. Your Dropbox folder and your website are always in sync.

#Why Dropbox?

Dropbox is boring technology. It’s been around since 2007. It works on every platform. It syncs reliably. It handles conflicts. It keeps version history. Hundreds of apps integrate with it.

That boring reliability is exactly what you want for publishing. Dropbox has already solved file sync — FolderPress just connects the other end to the web.

#The Best Sync Engine

Dropbox files appear locally on your computer. Start a post on your phone, finish it on your laptop. Write on the subway, changes sync when you’re back online. It’s a sync engine that doubles as a backup. You don’t think about it — it just works.

Most things you’d want to do with your site don’t even require logging into the FolderPress dashboard. Creating a new site is just creating a folder in Dropbox. Renaming a file updates the URL. Deleting a file removes the page. Dropbox is the source of truth — the dashboard only exists for things that can’t live in a folder, like setting a custom domain.

#Privacy by Architecture

FolderPress uses Dropbox’s App Folder scope. This means it’s impossible for FolderPress to access your private photos, documents, scans, or anything outside Apps/FolderPress/. This isn’t “we promise not to look” — it’s “we can’t see your files.” Dropbox enforces the boundary at the API level. FolderPress only receives webhook notifications for changes inside its own folder.

#Why Not GitHub?

GitHub requires git, which is friction. It limits where you can write to places that have git or the GitHub app. You have to leave your editor, switch context, stage, commit, push. That’s fine for code. For writing, it’s overhead.

The goal was simpler: you write, you save, you’re done. Dropbox makes that possible because saving a file is the only step.

#Works With Every Editor

Because Dropbox is a folder on your computer, any app that can save a file can publish to your website:

• iA Writer — distraction-free writing on Mac, iPad, iPhone
• Obsidian — link your notes, publish your thinking
• VS Code — developer’s editor, full markdown support
• Ulysses — writing app with Dropbox sync
• TextEdit — because it works
• Vim/Neovim — :w and it’s live
• Any app on your phone that can save to Dropbox

You don’t install a new tool. You use the tool you have.

#Works Offline

Write on a plane, in a cabin, on the subway. Your files save locally. When you reconnect, Dropbox syncs them and FolderPress publishes the changes. No internet needed to write — only to publish.

#Automatic Backup

Dropbox keeps version history for your files. Every save is a version you can recover. You don’t need a separate backup system for your blog — Dropbox already is one.

#What Markdown Looks Like

Markdown is a simple way to format text. If you’ve written a comment on Reddit or GitHub, you’ve used markdown.

# My Post Title
 
This is a paragraph. **Bold text** and *italic text* work like this.
 
## A Subheading
 
- Bullet point one
- Bullet point two
 
[Link text](https://example.com)
 
> A blockquote looks like this.

That’s most of what you need. Headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes. The syntax is designed to be readable even as plain text. See the full markdown blogging guide for more.

#Features That Come Free

When you save a markdown file to your FolderPress folder, you get all of this automatically:

#Your Own Domain

Start with yoursite.folderpress.com, then point your own domain whenever you’re ready. No extra cost.

#RSS Feed

Your blog automatically generates an RSS feed at /feed.xml. Readers can follow you in their feed reader of choice.

#Sitemap

An XML sitemap at /sitemap.xml helps search engines discover and index your content.

#OG Images

When someone shares your post on social media, FolderPress auto-generates an OG image with your post title and site name. No design work needed.

#Newsletter

Your site includes a subscribe form. When you publish a new post, it’s delivered to subscribers as an email — same content, no copy-pasting between platforms. No separate newsletter tool needed.

#Clean URLs

Your folder structure becomes your URL structure. Readable, permanent, and automatically managed.

#301 Redirects

Rename a file and FolderPress redirects the old URL to the new one. Search engines transfer the SEO value to the new address automatically. No broken links, no manual redirect rules.

#Code Highlighting

Code blocks are syntax-highlighted with Shiki, supporting 100+ programming languages.

#Math Rendering

Write LaTeX math notation and it renders beautifully with KaTeX.

#Drafts

Name a file with .draft.md and it won’t be published. Remove .draft when you’re ready.

#Folder Conventions

FolderPress uses simple conventions instead of configuration:

No settings page. No configuration file. The filesystem conventions tell FolderPress everything it needs to know.

#Who Uses Dropbox-to-Website Publishing?

#Writers and Bloggers

People who care about their words more than their CMS. They want to write in a focused editor and publish without friction.

#Newsletter Creators

Writers who send regular emails to subscribers. One file creates both the web version and the email. Learn more about newsletters with FolderPress.

#Developers

People who want a blog but don’t want to maintain a static site generator, build pipeline, and hosting setup. See why developers choose FolderPress.

#Note-Takers

Obsidian users (with vaults synced via Dropbox) who want to selectively publish parts of their knowledge base.

#How FolderPress Compares

See how FolderPress compares to Substack, Medium, WordPress, Ghost, and Blot.

#FAQ

#Do I need to know how to code?

No. If you can create a text file and save it to Dropbox, you can use FolderPress. Here’s how to start a markdown blog in under five minutes.

#What if I don’t have Dropbox?

FolderPress requires Dropbox for file sync. Dropbox has a free plan that includes more than enough storage for a blog.

#How fast do changes appear?

Seconds. FolderPress uses webhook-triggered sync — Dropbox notifies us the moment a file changes, and we process it immediately.

#Can I have multiple websites?

Yes. Each folder in Apps/FolderPress/ becomes a separate site with its own subdomain or custom domain.

#What happens if I stop using FolderPress?

Your files stay in your Dropbox, unchanged. They’re standard markdown — open them in any text editor, any time. Your content is always yours.

#Is my content private until I publish?

Files ending in .draft.md are never published. Only files without the draft suffix appear on your site.

#Can I use images?

Yes. Place images in your Dropbox folder and reference them in your markdown. They sync and display on your site.

#What markdown features are supported?

FolderPress supports GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM): tables, task lists, strikethrough, autolinks, and footnotes — plus code highlighting, math, and frontmatter. Why markdown is the best format for blogging.