Child Item

Lost my subscription after switching to a new Apple ID to renew.

Dropbox Plan
Dropbox Professional - Annual (Annual)
Payment Method
iOS App Store account balance.
How did you upgrade?
iOS App Store

Question or Issue
I've managed my Dropbox subscription via the iOS App Store for years. Earlier this year, I switched from my old Apple ID (which is now lost and unrecoverable, though I still receive emails from it) to a new one. On August 16, 2025, I successfully re-subscribed to Dropbox Plus (annual) using the new Apple ID. I received confirmation emails and an invoice from the App Store showing the payment was processed successfully, but I did not receive a confirmation email from Dropbox at that time and didn't think much of it. Meanwhile, I've been receiving ongoing failure notifications from the old Apple ID about Dropbox auto-renewal issues, which I ignored since the new subscription had gone through.

Today (September 24, 2025), I suddenly received a Dropbox notification that my account plan has been downgraded to free due to received notice from Apple that they were unable to process payment for my plan. Prior to this, I received no warnings or notifications from Dropbox. I've double-checked, and the payment via my new Apple ID was indeed successful (Order ID: MN7N1LS4HD).

Expected vs. Actual:

Expected: Subscription continues until August 2026 without interruption, with Professional plan based on the successful App Store payment.

Actual: Dropbox app now shows "Your Dropbox has been downgraded," limiting to 2GB free storage, but App Store still shows the subscription plan "Active." This disrupts my file syncing and work, with no prior alerts from Dropbox.

Relevant Screenshots/Errors:

The Dropbox account experiencing issues is the one I'm currently using in the community. I'm not sure if you can see my email address; if not, I can provide it later.

Regarding the relevant evidence, I have already sent it to the support email. The ticket number is #25562110. The bot auto-replies that because I'm on the free plan now, Dropbox doesn't offer any email level support.

Request:

Restore subscription through August 2026 and sync with Apple records.

Thank you!

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Accepted answers

Hannah

Hey @vincentsit, thanks for the reply here and I hope it's okay for me to jump in as well.

I know you said that the Dropbox app is not currently installed on your device, but can you please install it and use these steps to try and restore your purchase, to see if it works?

All comments

Megan

Hey there, @vincentsit let's jump right into this!

Based on what you described, it sounds like you might be using two separate Dropbox accounts: the one linked to your old Apple ID, and the one linked to the new.

Could you try the following if you haven't already? Please access the Dropbox mobile app, and check the current email address linked to your Dropbox account.

After that, please check in your App Store to make sure that the upgrade was for the same Dropbox account you're currently using on your end.

You also mentioned that you received a Dropbox notification that your account's subscription has been downgraded. Was that an email notification, or an in-app one?

Provided you received an email about this, can you check which email address you received the email to?

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!

vincentsit

Hi @Megan , thank you for your help. I'm absolutely certain that I only have one Dropbox account, and the one I use on my phone and computer is the same. Neither of my two Apple ID emails has ever been registered with Dropbox.

The downgrade notification was sent via email, and I rarely use Dropbox on mobile devices—I currently don’t have the Dropbox app installed on my phone. I’ve searched through all my email accounts for Dropbox-related emails, and only my current email address receives various marketing and notification emails from Dropbox; none of my other email accounts do.

I’ve already provided the relevant payment information. Could you please check in your backend system to see which Dropbox account this subscription is linked to? Thank you!

Rich

vincentsit wrote:
I'm absolutely certain that I only have one Dropbox account, and the one I use on my phone and computer is the same.

If you have a subscription under a second Apple ID, then you likely have two Dropbox accounts.

Do your old Apple ID and your new Apple ID have the same email address? Typically, a subscription stays with the ID. If you lost access to one ID and had to create another, any subscriptions would be for a new service, not a continuation of a service you had on the old ID.

vincentsit wrote:
Could you please check in your backend system to see which Dropbox account this subscription is linked to?

You would have to contact Support directly for that. No one here has that level of access into your account. Visit the Support page while you're NOT signed in to a Dropbox account, including these forums, and you'll be able to contact Support.

https://www.dropbox.com/get_help/billing-issue

vincentsit

If you have a subscription under a second Apple ID, then you likely have two Dropbox accounts.

That's not the case. I'm very familiar with iOS development and Apple's in-app purchase, and the app's account system has nothing to do with Apple's accounts. Dropbox sells a subscription product, and it doesn't need to know which Apple ID the user used when making the payment. In other words, for a single Dropbox account, I can switch to a different Apple ID every year—this is perfectly fine.

You would have to contact Support directly for that. No one here has that level of access into your account. Visit the Support page while you're NOT signed in to a Dropbox account, including these forums, and you'll be able to contact Support.

Actually, I first tried reaching out to support before coming here to post. Dropbox's policy is that if you don't have a paid plan, they don't offer one-on-one support at the email level. I attempted to contact their support email directly, and the automated response told me that since I'm on the free plan, my ticket wouldn't be handled by the support team. However, I haven't tried the solution you mentioned yet; I'll give it a shot now. Thank you very much.

vincentsit

Let me add a clarification to the first question: for example, Dropbox reminds you that your account is about to expire, but the automatic payment attempt fails, and now you can manually renew it. Originally, you subscribed using your own Apple ID, but this year you had your wife log into your Dropbox account to help you resubscribe (of course, using her Apple ID / phone). However, your own Apple ID subscription wasn't canceled; it just kept failing to charge successfully until the retry limit was exceeded. My situation is basically the same as this.

Hannah

Hey @vincentsit, thanks for the reply here and I hope it's okay for me to jump in as well.

I know you said that the Dropbox app is not currently installed on your device, but can you please install it and use these steps to try and restore your purchase, to see if it works?

vincentsit

Restoring the purchase solved the problem, thanks.

Jay

Hi @vincentsit, thanks for updating us on this matter and for letting us know that your issue has been resolved.

Enjoy the rest of your week!