Hi there, This is an issue I have been trying to resolve for some time now. I am trying to gain access to my deceased Dads Dropbox account. Previously these tickets were raised with Dropbox Support: Ticket 23608076 and 23006764 I understand certain documents are required. These are what we have: * The full name of the deceased person and the email address associated with their Dropbox account * Your name, mailing address, email address, and relationship to the deceased person * A photocopy of your government-issued ID * A photocopy of the death certificate * Documentation or other evidence linking the email address(es) to your father. Unfortunately we don't have these documents * A court order that specifies your authority to receive access to the Dropbox account * A copy of your father's Will, Trust, Power of Attorney, or other record evidencing their consent to disclosure of the content of electronic communications. Is there any other way, or any other documentation we can get to help us with this process please? It is so important that we gain access to these memories again and your co-operation would be much appreciated, thank you. Sarah

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I'm trying to gain access to my deceased father's Dropbox account

Hi there,

This is an issue I have been trying to resolve for some time now.

I am trying to gain access to my deceased Dads Dropbox account.

Previously these tickets were raised with Dropbox Support:

Ticket 23608076 and 23006764

I understand certain documents are required. These are what we have:

The full name of the deceased person and the email address associated with their Dropbox account
Your name, mailing address, email address, and relationship to the deceased person
A photocopy of your government-issued ID
A photocopy of the death certificate
Documentation or other evidence linking the email address(es) to your father.

Unfortunately we don't have these documents

A court order that specifies your authority to receive access to the Dropbox account
A copy of your father's Will, Trust, Power of Attorney, or other record evidencing their consent to disclosure of the content of electronic communications.

Is there any other way, or any other documentation we can get to help us with this process please? It is so important that we gain access to these memories again and your co-operation would be much appreciated, thank you.

Sarah

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Walter

Hi from me too @sarah copland - may I ask if you're seeing the same if you navigate to the home tab instead of the photos tab? Are you able to navigate the account in question through a web browser to see if you can preview the files there?

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Jay

Hi @sarah copland, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I'm sorry for your loss and the situation you're experiencing at this time.

As these are requirements by our security team to allow full access to another Dropbox account, currently, there isn't another method or documentation that can be used to gain access to the Dropbox account.

The only remaining possibility left to you would be if an existing device of theirs was still logged in to their account, thus giving you access to the account directly in order for you to download or copy the data elsewhere.

I hope the details I provided above were helpful, and if you have any further questions, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

sarah copland

Hi there,

Thanks for your response.

In terms of the documents required I can look to getting a court order however there was no POA or anything to evidence this in the will.

Unfortunately there is no way of accessing his dropbox via an existing device as it has locked out now.

Is that really everything we can possibly do exhausted? If there is anything at all that can be done I would be most grateful. This is for my Mum as there are so many old memories stored in his dropbox account. Thank you.

Mark

sarah copland wrote:
Is that really everything we can possibly do exhausted? If there is anything at all that can be done I would be most grateful.

I dont work for Dropbox I'm afraid but what I'd say is if you could try and have some sort of court order that may help.

Also, how long ago was it last accessed? Do you know? Accounts are removed after 12 months of inactivity so you may need to act quickly.

sarah copland

Hi Jay

Some progress on this, we have managed to access his account via one of his old devices, and as you suggested it was still logged in! There appears to be hundreds of photos there, however most of the images are greyed out and the message states "This file cant be previewed, to view this file open it on your computer". Have you any suggestions/thoughts as to what the problem could be please? As I said, the images are there just not showing (only a handful are).

Many thanks in advance!

Sarah

Hannah

Hey @sarah copland, I'm glad to see that you managed to access the account.

Are you getting this error message when trying to view the files on the Dropbox website?

Do the files that give you this error have their extensions at the end of the name? For example, file name.jpg, file name.png, etc.?

If not, rename them to add the extension and the preview should work.

Let us know if that's not the problem.

sarah copland

Thanks Mark! I have made some progress, we have managed to access his account via one of his old devices, and amazingly it was still logged in! There are hundreds of photos there, however most of the images are greyed out and the message states "This file cant be previewed, to view this file open it on your computer". Have contacted Dropbox for any suggestions/thoughts as to what the problem could be....

Hannah

Hi Sarah!

I replied to your previous response here; can you take a look and let me know if you can see it and if it helps?

sarah copland

Hi Hannah!

Thanks for coming back to me.

Yes, I am getting the error messages in the Dropbox App (on an I-pad) when trying to view the files. I will try your solution this evening and let you know if it works.

Thanks again, Sarah

Hannah

Got it, thanks, Sarah!

If what I mentioned is not the issue in your case, please also send me a screenshot of the error, so that we can investigate further.

sarah copland

Hi Hannah, I attach a couple of screenshots of what I can see. Some files don't appear to have extensions at the end...

Thankyou!

Hannah

Thanks for the update, Sarah!

Did you try to rename the files to add the extension and see if the preview works after that? You'll basically need to keep the name and just add the ".jpg" or ".png" at the end.

You'll find the exact steps here.

sarah copland

Hi Hannah,

Thanks again for coming back to me!

I cant see where to select all and then change the name, or even where the individual file name is?

Walter

sezza28

Hi Walter, thanks for your message. Yes we are seeing the same via the home tab and the photos tab, so can only view 8 pictures out of 100's. We are currently using my Dads Ipad to access his dropbox via the app, as it was already logged in. Thanks for your suggestions of using a web browser which I had considered, however we have the same problem as originally faced with, we dont know his DropBox password. Is there any way round this, due to the fact that currently we are logged into his account on the app? Thank you

Nancy

Hi @sezza28! If you go to the Home tab once again, do you see an option to rename one of the files there perhaps?

Nancy

Hey @sezza28, I wanted to check in with you and see if you were able to access the photos you wanted after all.

sarah copland

Hi Nancy, thanks so much for checking in. No, still havent got any further with the photos unfortunately. As above I dont know if it would work on a browser instead of in the app but as we dont have the p/w there is no way of checking. Thanks

Megan

Hey @sarah copland!

I'm going to suggest something outside of our scope here. However you might be able to further reach out to Apple for additional help.

More specifically, you can try to check for the "Passwords" option on your dad's iPad settings, and check if his Dropbox account's password is accessible and saved there, in order for you to access the account.

One last thing: when accessing the "Files" tab instead of the "Photos" tab, are you able to see the files' names there?

Rich

Another possibility, though a long shot...

If your father set up the Files app (not the Dropbox app, but Apple's own Files app) to connect to Dropbox, you may be able to access the content from there.

This screenshot is from an iPhone, but it's the same app.

sarah copland

Hi Megan thank you so much for your response. I brought my Dads Ipad into work to get some help here and whilst trying to log into the wifi here it has logged me out of his Dropbox account. So I think we are sadly back to square one.

Unless I can access his passwords in the settings, how would I do that? Thank you

sarah copland

Hi Rich thank you very much for the information above. I dont think my Dad had the files app unfortunately, at least I cant find it on his Ipad. Thank you though.

Hannah

Hey Sarah!

To access the saved passwords on the iPad, you'll need to open the Passwords app (which would be locked and you'd need to unlock it, I'm afraid) and then check if the Dropbox app is listed there.