I have had a small free Dropbox account for years which has come in handy once in a while when I need to send or receive files too large to email. The free account was limited to 2Gig, which was adequate for my needs. This year they started complaining that I was over the 2Gig limit, so I deleted and erased some files from Dropbox. However, they keep pestering me to upgrade to 2 or 3 Terabytes, which I don’t need, for $119/year. They also keep claiming that my free account is over the 2-gig limit, although it is not. I can still access my free account, but I don’t know how long that will last. I can’t find any listing of products that includes free small Dropboxes. What’s going on there, and where can I find other services that can transfer files too large to email.
Thanks, Jeff
One option everybody here already has access to:
What does the Dropbox system say your usage is? The most detailed place to check is on the Dropbox site > avatar (upper right corner) > Manage account > Personal Dropbox space
My tracking list of such services includes:
- Tresorit Send. I’ve used this one.
- SendThisFile
- DropSend
- You can send files in Gmail that exceed the file size limit by attaching the file from Google Drive
There are many other cloud storage services with free tiers. Here are the few that I have:
- Apple iCloud Drive has 5 GB for free with any iCloud account
- Google Drive includes 15 GB for free with any Google account
- Microsoft 365 includes 5 GB of OneDrive storage with the free tier and 1 TB per person for a personal or family subscription.
I’ve used WeTransfer frequently without any problems. I was recently forced to use Smash, which seems to have worked but failed most of the time to send me notification when my files had been downloaded by the recipient (it also has no means that I could find of contacting the developers), leaving me rather uneasy.
I checked my Dropbox account and it says “Personal Dropbox space Using 25.4 MB of 2.5 GB”
It had been larger but several weeks ago I deleted old files leaving only the remaining 25.4 MB.
The email I received yesterday from Dropbox says
"Hi Jeff,
Attention: Your Dropbox Basic account is still full.
- Your files have stopped syncing across your devices
- You cannot add new items to your Dropbox account "
The discrepancy is clear, so it looks like they are trying to push users of free accounts to paying $119/year. Thanks for the suggestions for alternatives.
That’s odd. Google search finds other users with this problem. One thing to check is if you have Dropbox Backup enabled.
If not, I think you need to post your question to the Dropbox support forum.
I use a similar service, Sync, which offers 5GB free. I have 16GB free thanks to some special offers. Recently, I started getting notices that my Sync storage was 93% of my limit when in fact I had only about 5GB of data in their cloud. Eventually I filed a support request. A day later, “We fixed something on our end and your storage data is now being correctly reported.”
Grrr. They really shouldn’t rely on their users to tell them when their software is malfunctioning.
WeTransfer has been tightening the services available to free users. For example, addressees now have only 3 days to download the files, down from 7 previously.
I haven’t heard from Sync for a while. I put about 200 Meg there six years ago, but my free version is still there. I never found much use for it.
It might be possible that if you’re using the Dropbox App (is there one for Mac?) or Finder Syncing I think it used to be called that although you deleted files from the web interface, the Mac-Finder-Dropbox-App syncing might be reloading them or something.
I gave up on using the Dropbox app/Finder years ago as it was then already too complex, and access it now only in a browser. I think earlier this year I too was getting ‘upgrade reminders’ and went in via Browser and downloaded everything to make sure nothing got lost, then deleted what was on there. Now that DB isn’t syncing anything I’m not getting reminders.
Assuming you’re talking about using DB on the Mac, vs. iOS but maybe same end effect…
Speculating, with a lot of "if"s, along the lines that David (TBTdn) discussed: If you have more than one device with Dropbox (perhaps one is an old computer that you’ve replaced) this might make sense. If you have two devices and Dropbox has disabled synching, deleting the files on one device would not delete them on the other, or on Dropbox’s servers. And if the report from Dropbox (“Personal Dropbox space Using 25.4 MB of 2.5 GB”) is referring to the space on that particular computer, not on your other devices or on the Dropbox servers, this might make sense. The only solution would be to delete the Dropbox contents on the old computer if you still have it, if Dropbox allows that, and if they then synch that change to their servers. Or, of course, to use one of the other solutions that have been offerred.
I don’t use smartphone apps and don’t have a tablet. I do have the Dropbox application on my desktop Mac, but it shows the same files as Dropbox online. I do not have Dropbox on my laptop. I once had a second Dropbox account on a different email for a consulting project, but that was shut down years ago. In short, I can’t see any plausible way for Dropbox to be seeing additional files unless they are using old records or backups of their own.
Is there any chance this is a phishing attempt? In 2012, Dropbox was breached and all their usernames and associated email addresses leaked.
I reported it to them at the time, and they denied it and continued to do so for some years. That data is still out there – I still get spam and phishing attempts using the email address that I only ever used for Dropbox.
I can see a miscreant sending a “you’re over your free account” email just like the ever-popular “your email inbox is full” phishes.
All the emails since May 18 have come from no-reply@em-s.dropbox.com, shortly after my former client shut down the Dropbox they had set up for me. The links they were set to go back to all were in the form “https://links.dropbox.com/u/click?” followed by a long string of gobbledygook (_t=60154b197d654466a40480a2b908d3b7&_m=349d7091235e4dbaaea83e775ed36391&_e=X3w4bVfmhBfttPFa5X9-f3x09lfdPWflgl9P7CxPySfWdUmgT1c6pZ9jojig5-kRhxIVMujwgFoXgZ5I-F1FVxn_vqzFandQmdLXBlgoI3EgelvQBbe9o3C2iHeNsL0FaW7Dd4FYN6ZHlBUE9P6TPjMJDkNd6IubZURiKKRzU3h1ch9rrkSVhv0EqnU2Fg-ayiYK_COjKFA0fADx1ohF5k6urV7WBqrPb4dedVRp2_Ry9Q1LiL1c78CyZJskLharzr5Qr12eS8fxl5htgeDLGtrz2NYDzXqnYAmWjzi4DPMIgk9bGb9fEIRDtShOf2ABFigyCEeRB_d1wOIZSuoB15BPB0Kj6gG1iDLyJ5WZdpZAI0JkTLk_7gYKuHKOkcpBzbsd3cCtHIEpZKFcoFV9je-luUK6UB8Jwat19QISq6xZhUnpXAQ4u53nq44PpzpCfMv3Nmc5P4S_OJMPszC40g%3D%3D&dbx_campid=7401130 : ) I split that code so anybody who accidentally clicked not get taken there, although it looks to me like it was in the Dropbox.com domain.
FileMail (https://www.filemail.com/) lets you send files up to 5GB for free
Some more cloud storage services with free tiers. iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Microsoft 365, and Sync were already mentioned.
- Backblaze B2: first 10 GB is free. Can access via website, Arq, Cyberduck, Mountain Duck, odrive, etc.
- Box: 10 GB free, each file up to 250 MB
- CloudMe: 3 GB free, each file up to 150 MB. Has ads.
- IDrive: 10 GB free
Blip also has its uses.
Blip is such a lovely piece of software. Well designed, extremely useful, and the sounds are delightful. I also use it when Airdrop randomly stops working, it’s just as convenient once you’ve set it up on your devices (which is one time and quick and easy).
First, let me just say that Dropbox sucks. I use it sometimes because I have to as others are using it, but the interface and policies are terrible.
And that may be part of the problem you’re having. If other people have shared files from their Dropbox to yours, I believe it counts that as part of your total. Even though those files are not actually in your storage area. At least that seems to be what’s going on.