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Shared folders should take up space only from the owner's account, not from the members'.

Pretend I'm a user with a paid Dropbox account. I share a folder to 10 people and ask them to upload files to this folder for me so I can work on a project.

None of the 10 people has a paid Dropbox account.

I created the folder.

I own the folder.

I want the files they give me.

It makes sense that the files they provide me count against my storage limit.

It does not make sense that all 10 people now have all 10 users' files collectively measured and each of those 10 people now has all 9 other people's uploads count against each of their storage limits.

That's what Dropbox is currently doing to me. And since Free accounts aren't allowed to contact Dropbox (support is for paid accounts only) you have set up a system that harasses potential customers and leaves them with no option but to either throw money at you or stop using Dropbox, tell their clients not to ask them to use Dropbox, and block the series of "no reply" e-mails coming in from Dropbox telling them that other people have pushed them over their storage limit. Without that, every client I upload to whose shared folder is larger than my storage limit will trigger Dropbox punishing me for the client's storage, which is what's happening now.

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Hannah

We really appreciate your feedback on this, @VoiceOfTrenton.

Your comments have been passed along and noted by our team.

If you need anything else, let us know.

Have a great day!

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Megan

Hey @VoiceOfTrenton, I hope you're doing well!

Your feedback regarding our shared folders and the space they take has been very valuable and I will endeavor to make sure your voice is heard.

I will pass on your comments to the relevant departments so we can continue to improve.

If you need anything else, give me a shout!

VoiceOfTrenton

Thanks Megan! I do need something else please. If you read the description, I'm getting e-mails from Dropbox that I'm over my storage limit because I uploaded files to a client's Dropbox folder and now Dropbox is counting their folder against my storage limit.

I need tech support, but I can't contact them because the support page doesn't let a free account submit a ticket or talk to technical support.

So can someone please fix this problem so I don't keep getting e-mails that someone else's storage has pushed my account over its limit?

Megan

Hey @VoiceOfTrenton, thanks for the speedy response!

Would you mind checking your account's plan page, and let me know what it reports there?

If you're sharing folders/files between accounts then the storage should take space from your account too.

VoiceOfTrenton

It's Basic, but it only exists because my client shared a link to THEIR folder and asked me to upload specifically to THEIR folder. Their folder is bigger than my account, but the point is, it's not my folder. It's the client's folder. I'd like to not get e-mails telling me my files aren't syncing and I'm over my limit.

Hannah

Hey @VoiceOfTrenton!

If you have edit access to the folder, the folder will need to take up space in your account as well, so that you can edit it.

If you no longer need to have access to it, you can remove your own access, by following the steps here.

Otherwise, if you need to access it, without affecting your own space, ask the owner to send you a "view-only" link instead.

And lastly, if you need to, say, upload files to their account, they can also send you a file request, which won't affect your space either.

I hope this helps!

yidanz

Hello @VoiceOfTrenton, I would also recommend checking out Dropbox File Request. It may work well for the scenario you are describing.

VoiceOfTrenton

Hey @Hannah ! Thanks for this information. The Remove My Access steps worked for me and that was very helpful.

I can understand why it's more profitable for Dropbox to charge quota against everybody who contributes to the folder of the user who's paying for that storage even if I don't agree with it, so I get that Dropbox isn't going to change that practice any time soon. But I feel like it might be helpful for people to understand what's going on a little more clearly--there's a potential that one user sees a folder they don't own counting against their storage, deletes it because they think it just gets deleted out of their storage, and they've just deleted someone else's files.

I suspect I'm not the only person to run into this situation.

I would also suggest that there be some way for a Basic user to actually contact Dropbox in the event of an issue--as we see here, I had to use the Feature Request to get someone's attention. The chatbot just said it couldn't help me, directed me to the support page, and the support page told me I couldn't get support without paying Dropbox. My next step would have been to look up your business registry information and start calling phone numbers, which honestly sucks for everybody.

I have multiple storage accounts, so paying to have my business e-mail address using storage I don't need just because a client also uses Dropbox isn't economical to me.

@yidanz - thanks for the Dropbox File Request suggestion! That would be useful and if I can ask my clients to use that, and it doesn't impact my own storage quota, that would help. I've bookmarked the link and I'll keep it handy for in future.

Thank you both for the help. I hope this experience is also helpful to Dropbox for future reference too.

Hannah

We really appreciate your feedback on this, @VoiceOfTrenton.

Your comments have been passed along and noted by our team.

If you need anything else, let us know.

Have a great day!

Cdesign007

Having the exact same problem: I was shocked to discover that working with my client's Dropbox is affecting the storage in my Dropbox.