Pint-size file uploader

Progress makes today’s labor-saver tomorrow’s drudgery, so maybe it’s a matter of time before even dropping files from one window into another feels like work. That seems to be the logic behind Drops, a barely there FTP client that’s so streamlined it hardly exists on your Desktop at all. We’re big fans of simplicity, and while this app does its job, that job is pretty limited.

Drops handles multiple uploads, but only one is active at a time.

Drops lives as an icon in your menu bar. Enter your FTP site’s info, then drag a file or folder onto the icon, and your documents are uploaded automatically. The Drops icon glows blue as files are copied, then flashes green when transfers are complete (red means a bad connection). If you need more information, clicking the icon displays a menu with transfer progress, a list of recent uploads (complete with URLs you can copy with a click), and a directory of all the FTP servers you’ve entered so you can switch among them on the fly (one can also be set as a default). You can also make Drops compress files and folders into ZIP archives before uploading, automatically shorten those uploads’ URLs, or trash the original files on your Mac when a transfer is complete.

But that’s it. If you want to browse a destination folder, retrieve its files, or talk to iDisks, you’re out of luck. Drops is strictly a one-trick pony. Worse, it’s an incomplete one—as of this writing, the in-app Help link leads to a dead URL.

The bottom line. Drops is a cute and easy way to zap files to FTP servers, but in the age of Dropbox, the utility of this utility feels limited.