I reckon that using Git with Dropbox is a poor mans Source Control in the Cloud, but its a free solution for private code repositories. Dropbox gives you 2 gigs of cloud space to fill with whatever I want, so why not some of my crappy code? It’s also easy to manage and share this way… and comes in handy while waiting for a TFS preview invite to hit my mailbox. So here’s what I did:

Download and install the latest version of the following software:

• Git for Windows and don’t forget to check to include Kdiff3 in the installer
• Git Extensions for integration with Visual Studio
• Dropbox for Windows

Next create a folder for your code in your new Dropbox folder on your Windows machine. This is your place for code in the cloud. Open a test solution in Visual studio to play around with. You can place it anywhere on your local system. From within Visual Studio choose Git -> Initialize new repository (personal). You now created a new Git repository for this solution. Also choose Git -> Edit .gitignore. It is safe to choose the “Add default ignores” option to prevent Git from uploading non-code files build by Visual Studio, like the /bin/debug folder.

Now start Git GUI and open the existing repository you just created. If all went well you see your solution files under the header “unstaged changes”.

Select all files and choose Commit -> Stage to Commit. Your files apear in the “Staged Changes (will commit)” listbox. Now add some comment to the “Initial comment message” textbox and press “Commit”. Now Git can track any changes in your code.

Push your code to Dropbox
Let’s create a remote connection by choosing Remote -> Add give it a name and the local path to you Dropbox repository folder (e.g. C:\Users\name\Dropbox\Repository). Select “Initialize Remote Repository and Push” and click “Add”. Git places a copy of your solution in the Dropbox folder. Within seconds, Dropbox will synchronize automatically, ready to be pulled by Git for co-developers on other systems.