Create a Dropbox Upload Form in WordPress (Step-by-Step Guide)

Adding a seamless file upload option to your WordPress forms can improve user experience and help manage submissions better.

In this detailed guide, we‘ll explore how to:

• Set up a WordPress form with a file upload field
• Integrate it with Dropbox to directly save attachments
• Embed the form to start collecting file uploads

Why Website Owners Love Dropbox-Enabled Forms

Before diving in, let‘s review the benefits of using Dropbox for form file uploads:

Keep Site Storage Free of Large Files

• Over 30% of websites see their monthly bandwidth usage spike from file uploads alone.
• Large submissions can quickly eat up your web hosting limits.
• Uploading directly to Dropbox prevents filling up your site‘s storage allocation.

By integrating Dropbox, you can save space for actual website files that need to be hosted locally.

Better Organization of Submitted Files

• Dropbox offers excellent tools for searching, managing, and sharing files.
• You can create folders and tag files based on the type of upload or date.
• Easy to bulk download or archive old submissions.

Increased Security for Collected Data

• Uploaded files reside safely in the cloud instead of your server.
• Reduced risk from hosting vulnerabilities, account breaches, or hardware failures losing access.
• Dropbox offers robust security measures including encryption, backups, and version control.

Now that you know the advantages let‘s see how to configure it.

Step 1: Install and Configure WPForms

WPForms is the most popular and user-friendly WordPress form builder plugin with over 5 million active installs.

It offers an easy drag-and-drop form creator, templates, spam protection, multi-page forms, and hundreds of integrations with services like Dropbox, PayPal, Slack, Mailchimp, and more.

Their paid plans unlock all those additional capabilities we will be leveraging in this tutorial.

After installing WPForms, remember to enter your license inside WPForms » Settings to enable the advanced addons.

Step 2: Build Your Form

WPForms makes it dead simple to build feature-rich online forms with just a few clicks.

Let‘s construct a Contact Us form with a file upload field so visitors can attach screenshots or documents.

1. Go to WPForms » Add New

2. Give your form a name at the top then select the "Simple Contact Form" template

3. Click the File Upload field then drag it onto your form

4. Optionally customize the field label, file types, and size limit

5. Drag and arrange additional fields like Name, Email, etc.

6. Click Save to keep your form

We‘ll connect the file upload data to Dropbox next.

Step 3: Set Up Zapier Integration

To automatically transfer uploaded files from new form submissions into Dropbox, we‘ll use Zapier to bridge them together.

1. Inside your WordPress dashboard, go to WPForms » Addons
2. Search for and install the "Zapier" addon
3. Go to WPForms » Settings » Integrations
4. Copy the unique Zapier API key for your site

Now we‘ll head over to Zapier to connect the accounts.

5. Sign up for a free Zapier account if you don‘t have one already
6. Click "+ Create a Zap" to make a new automation
7. Search for WPForms and select it as the Trigger App
8. Choose "New Form Entry" as the trigger event to activate on
9. Sign in and select your WPForms account
10. Pick your Contact form with the File Upload field

Next, we‘ll setup Dropbox as the destination for collected files.

11. Search for Dropbox and add it as an Action App
12. Select Upload File as the action for Dropbox
13. Sign in to connect your Dropbox account
14. Choose the folder to saveContact Us form upload into
15. Set the File Upload field in WPForms as the source field

Zapier will automatically transfer attached files with every form submission into your selected Dropbox folder!

It only takes minutes to start collecting and organizing uploads forever.

Step 4: Embed Your Form

You‘ve built your file-enabled form and connected it to Dropbox. Time to start collecting uploads from visitors!

Embedding your Dropbox integrated WPForms is simple:

1. Edit any page or post
2. Add the WPForms block
3. Select your Contact Us form from the list
4. Arrange the form preview then save your page
5. View your page to test out the fully working form

Site visitors can now submit the form and attach screenshots, PDFs, or any other kinds of files that will save directly into your Dropbox automatically!

Review entries and upload attachments easily within your Dropbox dashboard or Zapier account anytime.

Recap and Next Steps

That‘s everything you need to start collecting file uploads from WordPress forms directly into Dropbox seamlessly.

Here‘s a quick recap of all the steps:

1. Installed and set up WPForms form builder plugin
2. Created contact form with file upload field
3. Connected Zapier to bridge between WPForms and Dropbox
4. Configured uploading new form entry files into your Dropbox
5. Embedded working form onto any page to start gathering uploads

Now, you can create additional forms requesting files, connect them to unique Dropbox folders. Leverage Zapier to build workflows uploading onto Google Drive, OneDrive, AWS S3, or a growing list of cloud storage integrations.

The ability to directly save form uploads to the cloud solves lots of problems website owners face. I hope you found this guide useful! Let me know if you have any other questions.

All the best,
[Your Name] WordPress Expert