How To Sync Beersmith 2 Using Dropbox

I recently picked up a small Windows tablet/netbook that will let me work on the brewing stuff and the website without being tied to the desktop. Now I can be more present with the family and more easily pick up and work when I have some spare time. However, this makes me stuck with how to manage my BeerSmith 2 software that is now installed on two computers.

Beersmith does offer cloud support, but you are limited to 15 recipes before starting on a monthly plan. I have more than 15 recipes so I would have to decide what to put up there and constantly juggle what I have in the cloud. I am too lazy for this. In addition, you cannot store equipment profiles, inventory, etc. So any adjustments made to your equipment will not be carried across to the other computer.

Enter Dropbox. Surely there has to be a way to sync my files in the cloud. After spending some time surfing the web I came across a very simple solution thanks to user calumscott on the Home Brew Forum. I had my Beersmith files share between my machines in less than 15 minutes.  The instructions below assume default installations. If you have changed the location of any of the desired folders then update your pathnames accordingly. Follow these instructions for both computers to setup syncing for your Beersmith files.

1. Create a Dropbox account and install Dropbox. If you are using Windows 8 you need to install Dropbox on the desktop. The app will not work for this purpose. This will give you a folder on your hard drive that syncs with the cloud. (e.g. C:\users\<username>\dropbox)
2. Create a local copy of your Beersmith folder as a backup. This is your safety net in case something ever goes wrong. This folder should be located here: C:\users\<username>\documents\beersmith2
3. Move a copy of your Beersmith folder into your dropbox folder. The path should now be: C:\users\<username>\dropbox\beersmith2
4. Delete the existing Beersmith folder. (Don’t worry. It’s ok. We made a backup, remember?)
5. Create a symbolic link to the Dropbox folder that will take the place of the Beersmith folder you just deleted.
   1. Open a command prompt. Search for “cmd” and hit enter to open the prompt. If you do not have administrator rights on your machine you will need to right-click on “cmd” and select “Run as Administrator.” You cannot create the link unless you have administrator priveleges.
   2. Change directory to where your Beersmith folder was.

      cd \users\<username>\documents

   3. The command to create a symbolic link is: “MKLINK /D linkname target”. So in this case you would type:

      MKLINK /D BeerSmith2 C:\users\<username>\dropbox\beersmith2

There are some limitations with this setup. You must be online when wanting to use BeerSmith. If you need to use Beersmith while offline, you will need to plan ahead and recreate your local folder. You cannot use both installations of Beersmith at the same time (nor should you).

However, now I can have my beer recipes with me anywhere in the house with full editing functionality. Huzzah! I will be doing more testing with this setup and I’ll update this post if I come across anything new.