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How to delete files when your Dropbox is full?

My drop box is a personal account account and is full. How do I delete files to free up space as it won't give me access to my space / files? When I'm logged in it asks me to pay and upgrade - I don't see any alternatives which allow me to view current data so I can delete files. I don't want to upgrade as I do not use drop box that often.

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Vivian

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

When your Dropbox folder is over quota then file syncing will stop. Files are not removed and once you bring your account under quota the syncing will resume.

To get your account under quota you can do any of the following:

1. Upgrade your account

2. Increase your storage quota by referring friends. Please see here https://help.dropbox.com/space/earn-space-referring-friends to earn more space by referrals.

3. Leave shared folders. Check out Help Center article https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/leave-shared-folder.

4. Remove files from your Dropbox. For more information on how to remove files visit https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/delete-files.

Hope this helps! Let me know how it works out.

Thanks,

Vivian

All comments

Vivian

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

When your Dropbox folder is over quota then file syncing will stop. Files are not removed and once you bring your account under quota the syncing will resume.

To get your account under quota you can do any of the following:

1. Upgrade your account

2. Increase your storage quota by referring friends. Please see here https://help.dropbox.com/space/earn-space-referring-friends to earn more space by referrals.

3. Leave shared folders. Check out Help Center article https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/leave-shared-folder.

4. Remove files from your Dropbox. For more information on how to remove files visit https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/delete-files.

Hope this helps! Let me know how it works out.

Thanks,

Vivian

SueH

Thanks for your suggestions Vivian

I don't want to upgrade (option 1).

I can try referring friends (2). But the problem is this: I've exceeded my quota, and now dropbox has locked me out. I can't see my files online, just the message telling me to upgrade. So I'm unable to do options 3 or 4. I've removed files (not online, just using file manger, so I'm now back under my quota) but it won't sync. In other words dropbox is trying to force me to upgrade. If I refer friends but then in the future accidently exceed my quota then the same thing will happen.

In the past I have just removed files, no problem.

Any suggestions anyone?

Thanks

SueH

Oh, and now I find that the abilty to refer friends also seems to have blocked, at least I cannot find it under settings/account.

Also, I do have quite a lot of shared files, most of which I created. So am wondering if there's a work around I can do by getting the people I share those files with to cut me out of them....

124

Did you have any luck in getting a useful response? I have the same problem. I would delete files if i could so I don't have to upgrade but I can't get into the account.

SueH

Oh dear, I can't remember how I figured it out in the end. I think I got my daughter to sign up, which gave me enough credit to access my account so that I could delete files. Though I don't know how I managed that if the friends thing was disabled. Sorry, the only part I'm remembering clearly was that it was really annoying!

MM2

No - still the same.

Extorted

Dropbox is fully aware that thye are denying users access to their account when the box exceeds the limit for Basic level storage. They are forcing you to pay them at least a monthly fee just so you can gain access to your account to delete the files that exceeded the storage limit. When this issue is reported to the help center their response is to upgrade or refer a friend. If you can not or don't want to do either, then you are essentially locked out of your box. Most people would call this EXTORTION! and it is just that. If there is a governing authority that prevents companies from this type of abuse, I suggest that everyone reading this should notify them.

Zed

Hello @Extorted,

When you are overquota on your free account, unfortunately you hit your 2GB limit and not being able to sync makes sense since you have no available space. Your account will not freeze completely though, you get the options to download and/or delete files from your account to free up space and go under-quota.

To get more space you can upgrade to our Plus plan or you can check here to see what you can do to get some more free space.

Thanks!

DM92

Hi @Zed

What you seem to be misunderstanding is the fact you cannot get back into your dropbox file list, therefore you cannot delete files to become under your quota. My Quota is 6.4GB (Random figure in my mind), and I currently have 7+GB of files which I cannot delete to regain access.

This is the first time I have signed into Dropbox for a year or so, obviously they have updated quotas since I last signed in. I apparently had more space previously.

Personally I'm not too bothered by it, as I clearly rarely use it and will just stick to using Google Drive instead of being forced to pay for access to delete my own files off the account.

Mark

DM92 - is this on the Dropbox website?

If so you should be able to just tap the X on the top right of the screen to go past the menu option, or, tap ESC on your keyboard.

Note, however, that the X is sometimes hidden if you dont have your browser on a standard 100% resolution.

DM92

It was on the Dropbox website but none of that worked.

Thankfully after deciding to reinstall the Desktop App, a couple of things synced up so I removed them from Dropbox and surprisingly that got me back down to below the quota

avishalom

This is a lie. I cannot delete, and I cannot leave shared folders. (which are the cause of this for me) a shared folder is now 18GB and locking me out.

avishalom

The solution i found is to use this link

https://www.dropbox.com/home

to access the files.

Mark

Another way of doing that would be to go to www.dropbox.com/share , leaving the share AND while leaving it selecting the option to not keep a copy

Saah

I had the same issue and between these steps it was fixed, but I have no idea which actually did the trick, or why.

First of all, I wasn't logged in here, and clicked the kudos button in a comment. I was redirected to the "Create an account" page, where it asked for an username. When I tried to go back, all pages I had visited in this website were only showing the "Create an account" page. Even clicking an result from Google redirected me back to that page... So I cleared the cookies for dropboxforum.com.

Tha fixed my issue with this forum, but, strangely enough, when I went back to my dropbox tab and tried once again to load from the https://www.dropbox.com/ link (with nothing after the /), I actually got to my files page! I have no idea why deleting only the dropboxforum.com cookies made my files show up, but it's worth a try! I took that chance to delete files and go back to being below my space limit, so I have no way of reproducing that, or finding out exactly why those steps worked.

tl;dr:

Log out of dropboxforum
Click on a kudos button
You'll be redirected to the "create an account" page, close the tab
Delete all dropboxforum.com cookies
Try accessing https://www.dropbox.com/ again

It's probably only step 4 that does the trick, but I listed all of them because you never know.

bethink

Wow that worked!

pezcrow

Thanks, worked!

unknown

The system is clearly made not to suggest this solution, thank you very much @avishalom!

pierre b.18

This is ridiculous and frustrating. It won't let me in to remove any files per your instructions. The pop up insists I pay $12.99 per month. I am not interested in upgrading ..it's a money grab. I just want to get my files off Dropbox and use it as little as possible in the future.

BayAreaBioTech

This is insanely frustrating, I am also locked out and unable to delete without upgrading. I am trying to manage dropbox for our startup and this is an unacceptable situation. Definitely going to cancel our companies Dropbox account as soon as I can get my data out!

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