How do I upload directly to someone else's folder?

Happy to see that you found our info helpful, zanderpm​!

If you need anything else, please let us know.

Have a great day!

Thanks for the help, everybody! We looked at the subscription tiers last night, and it looks like the top tier option may offer what we need. So we'll see if they want to upgrade to that, or just stick with OneDrive. I'm hoping for the former.

Thanks again!

This does a very good job of summing up everything that I've found so far. It's not a particularly intuitive way of doing it, but of course, they can build their own system however they want. Thanks for your help.

That's a fair assumption, but in this case it was just an example. I'm actually a volunteer working with a non-profit, so contractor was probably not a great example for me to choose.

I understand that they need the revenue. I'm trying to upload to a paid account. I don't need a copy stored in my account, (they're not storing it twice anyway, it's just tagged to 2 accounts) just access to the account that it's going to.

zanderpm wrote:

... it still seems like a pretty complicated workaround just to be able to access a folder normally. Is Dropbox just not built for contractors and the like?

Dropbox is built around collaboration and works well for the exact situation you've mentioned. If you want to easily be able to upload and continue to access files that you've uploaded then you need to use a shared folder, but you're not uploading files directly to someone else's account.

When you're a member of a shared folder, you have your own copy of the folder in your account and anything you add or change in the folder is synced with all other members. Since anything in your account takes up space, you need to have enough space available in your account to hold that folder and its content.

If that doesn't work for you or you're not able to upgrade for more space, then you can use a file request to upload directly to someone else, and they can share it back to you using a view-only link. Neither of which will affect your own account (unless you choose to save the content of the link back to your account, obviously).

Simply put, the exact options you need are there, but if space is an issue then you need to pay for more storage. Otherwise there are free workarounds, though they're not perfectly ideal for how you want to work.

zanderpm wrote:

Is Dropbox just not built for contractors and the like?

As a contractor I assume you are charging the company for your equipment etc. so if needed also charge for Dropbox. 

Remember that Dropbox has no other revenue stream bar paid accounts - and every account costs money to support and manage. It isnt like Google where it scans files/emails etc. to target you with adverts. 

That's a step in the right direction, but it still seems like a pretty complicated workaround just to be able to access a folder normally. Is Dropbox just not built for contractors and the like?

Hey zanderpm, regarding the file requests, once you upload the files, you won't be able to access them any more, only the owner of the folder will.

If you just need to access the files (view/download) though, the owner could send you a "view-only" link to the folder.

I hope this helps!

I did read about that, actually, but I'll be uploading often, and also accessing the files as a backup, as well as part of my workflow. Would the File Request still work well in that situation?

It occurs to me that I would need the same solution that would be used for an employee who should only have access to certain folders. Is that something that's available?

zanderpm wrote:

I'm doing some work for a company and would like to upload large files directly to their Dropbox folder.

Have the other person send you a File Request. You'll be able to upload directly to their account without affecting your own.

https://help.dropbox.com/share/create-file-request