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My Dropbox account says it's over its space limit, but I don't have any large files.

Spiral_G

Hello,

I'm getting a message that I can't upload files to Dropbox anymore because I'm over the Basic storage limit (2 GB). My files do not reach this capacity, according to a quick calculation I'm actually at around 0.008 GB. No one else on my team is reporting this issue.

What is going on? What do I do? I saw Backup files is a common problem, but I'm not using Backup at all.

Thank you.

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Storage space

Error Messages

Dropbox Basic

Quota

Accepted answers

Hannah

Thanks for posting to our Community today, @Spiral_G!

If your normal files or backup files don't justify you going over your space limit, is it possible that you have any shared folders that might be doing that?

Shared folders take up space in each member's account, no matter who created them.

Let me know if that's not the case.

Nancy

If you don’t need access to that shared folder, you can temporarily delete it from your Dropbox account (this shouldn’t affect the rest of the folder members, and you can add the folder back later on in the future).

Otherwise, if you don’t want to remove this folder, you can perhaps try to gain more space for free by referring other people to Dropbox.

Nancy

I’m afraid that deleting files/folders from within the shared folder instead will affect the rest of the members, as those will also be removed from their Dropbox accounts in this scenario.

All comments

Hannah

Thanks for posting to our Community today, @Spiral_G!

If your normal files or backup files don't justify you going over your space limit, is it possible that you have any shared folders that might be doing that?

Shared folders take up space in each member's account, no matter who created them.

Let me know if that's not the case.

Spiral_G

Hello Hannah,

Maybe I don't understand Dropbox, but all I am seeing are my shared folders. These come out to a total storage space of about 0.008 GB. These are the same folders that are shared with team members who are not reporting the error I am seeing.

Spiral_G

Please see attached photo. This is all I have.

Spiral_G

Hold on. I did find a separate Shared section which is somehow a different category of shared files from the visible section I posted above. There is a folder there that I can't get rid of that is 2 GB in size.

I think I've gone as far as I can in solving this issue.

Nancy

@Spiral_G, can you send me a screenshot of what you see on this page? It should provide more info on your current storage usage.

Feel free to send me a screenshot of the Shared section you found, as well.

Spiral_G

Hello Nancy,

Here are the pictures.

It looks like one of my groups has a large folder, probably due to a number of shared photos. I don't think I can ask for these files to be removed (even though I don't use them at all). I have probably reached the end of this inquiry, unless you can recommend any actions.

Nancy

Spiral_G

Is there a way to delete individual folders within a shared folder, without deleting them for other users?

(Basically, I need access to the overall folder listed as having 2 GB, but don't need access to many of the folders within that folder.)

Nancy

I’m afraid that deleting files/folders from within the shared folder instead will affect the rest of the members, as those will also be removed from their Dropbox accounts in this scenario.

Spiral_G

Gotcha!

Thank you everyone for your assistance. I certainly know more about Dropbox than I did before.

Jay

Hi @Spiral_G, I'm glad that we were able to provide more information on how to use Dropbox!

If there's anything else we can assist with, feel free to reply back here.

Spiral_G

Hello Jay. Can you confirm that shared folders have their data size split between however many people are using the folder?

I'm still not sure why I'm the only person on my team who is having this issue.

Jay

This article helps to explain it in more detail, namely the first paragraph:

"The size of a shared folder will be counted against the quota of every member of that folder, unless each person is on the same Dropbox Standard, Advanced, or Enterprise team or Dropbox Family plan. For Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise teams and Family plans, the size of the shared folder only counts once against the shared quota."

This means that if everyone has a personal account, then the full size of the shared folder will be on each of their accounts, so if the folder is 10 GB in size and there are five members in the folder, that means each user has a folder of 10 GB on their account, and not just 2 GB split equally among them.

If you're all members of a Dropbox team, then the shared folder would only be 10 GB quota added to the total team quota.

If you're the only person experiencing this, then it's possible that the other users have more quota on their accounts either by purchasing a personal plan, or they're part of a Dropbox team.