You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

ImgnPixel's avatar
ImgnPixel
Explorer | Level 4
2 months ago

Issues with shared folder access and quota usage on Dropbox Basic plan

Hello,

 

I’m currently on Dropbox Basic (Free) with a total of 8.5 GB of storage. I use Dropbox primarily for my business and recently set up a shared folder specifically for our social media manager, who has edit access. Her role involves uploading, downloading, and managing digital content for our marketing efforts, and I gave her Can Edit permissions, expecting that she could fully collaborate within this folder without needing her own storage space.

 

However, we’re encountering issues. She’s been getting messages suggesting that she needs to upgrade her account to access the folder fully. Initially, she received an error stating that “access through the links requires an upgrade.” She temporarily upgraded to a 30-day free trial, which resolved the access issue, but ideally, we’d like to keep both our accounts on the Basic plan.

 

My understanding was that as long as I have enough space on my account, any content shared within this folder would be covered by my storage capacity, not requiring her to have additional storage on her end.

 

Questions:

 

1.Is there a way to allow her to upload, download, and edit files without her needing additional storage or an upgraded account?

2.Are there specific sharing settings I should adjust so she can manage files within my storage limits?

3.Would sharing a link instead of an “invite to edit” resolve these storage-related prompts, or does it limit collaboration capabilities?

 

Thank you for any insights on how I might be able to set this up efficiently on a Dropbox Basic plan!

  • Hi ImgnPixel 

     

    Unfortunately, your understanding is incorrect. Shared folders use the quota of everybody in the share. So if you want to share with somebody for read/write access they must have that amount of space free to access it. 

     

    If you DONT need collaborative type access she can download by using links, edit on her own device and reupload to you via Requests BUT that means you cannot have it in her Dropbox folder on her computer and you'd need to manually move things around. She'd also very possibly be on out of date files if you dont move things quickly, or, she downloads out of date things from links. 

  • Mark's avatar
    Mark
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

    Hi ImgnPixel 

     

    Unfortunately, your understanding is incorrect. Shared folders use the quota of everybody in the share. So if you want to share with somebody for read/write access they must have that amount of space free to access it. 

     

    If you DONT need collaborative type access she can download by using links, edit on her own device and reupload to you via Requests BUT that means you cannot have it in her Dropbox folder on her computer and you'd need to manually move things around. She'd also very possibly be on out of date files if you dont move things quickly, or, she downloads out of date things from links. 

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!