Save files straight to the cloud with Ballloon for Chrome

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These days nearly everyone uses at least one cloud-storage service. But are you still jumping through the same old download-upload hoops?

In other words, if you want to archive, say, a file or image, do you first download it to your PC, then upload it to, say, Dropbox?

If you’re a Google Chrome user, there’s a much easier way. Ballloon (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) is a Chrome extension that lets you quickly save Web files to any of six popular cloud-storage services.

After installing it, you get started by signing into your existing Google account. From there you choose one or more services to enable for quick-saves: Box, Copy, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and SugarSync. Whenever you click one of these the first time, you’ll need to provide access authorization.

So let’s walk through using Ballloon with Google Drive. After you’ve installed the extension and signed into your Google account, do an image search for, say, Harry Houdini. Mouse over any of the resulting pictures and you should see the Ballloon menu:

Click the Google Drive icon, then the Enable Google Drive link. Complete the authorization process. Now return to your image-search tab, mouse over the image again and click the Google Drive icon. This time you’ll see a list of possible folders where you can save the photo:

Choose a folder if you like, or just click Save if you prefer the root directory.

Ballloon works with files and links, too: Just right-click one and look for the blue “Save link to” or “Save image to” menu option, then choose your preferred service (as shown at the top).

If you’re tired of jumping through extra hoops just to save items to your favorite cloud service, this is a much quicker, easier solution.