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Forum Discussion
adrian29630
3 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Why is my account out of space?
As seems to be the case these days with many "Apps" they want you to buy their product but don't deliver support and want to rely on "Communities". In other words free assistance from other users whi...
- 3 years ago
Hi adrian29630, you can leave the shared folder from your account, or remove your access to it completely, by following these steps.
It won't affect other users who are currently members of the shared folder.
Rich
Super User II
3 years ago
adrian29630 wrote:
Thanks for this reply although I still do not understand what this means. ... What you are saying seems to imply that both accounts would need to have the same amount of access/space even though the folders would only really be in one account.
For future reference, and to help clear things up, when you are a member of a shared folder, regardless of whether you are the owner or are invited to someone else's folder, you have your own COPY of the folder in your account. You're not uploading to someone else's account, and the folder doesn't exist in one location. Everyone has their own copy of the folder and anything you do in that folder will sync to the other user's copy of folder.
Harry Molyneux
3 years agoHelpful | Level 6
If that's the case why does every member with access to that folder need to pay for it's storage separately? Surely there should be an owner or owner organization responsible for the billing of that folder.
It doesn't work like that on other services and seems like profiteering.
- Rich3 years ago
Super User II
Harry Molyneux wrote:
If that's the case why does every member with access to that folder need to pay for it's storage separately?
Because every member has their own COPY of the folder in their own account which syncs back to all the other members, and anything in your account takes up space. You're not accessing a folder in someone else's account.
- Harry Molyneux3 years agoHelpful | Level 6It’s not really their own unique copy, it’s the exact same folder.
It doesn’t have to work that way, it’s just set up like that by Dropbox so they can charge users more. It’s pretty obvious. Google Drive doesn’t work that way and the functionality is the exact same. - Rich3 years ago
Super User II
Harry Molyneux wrote:
It’s not really their own unique copy, it’s the exact same folder.No, it's a unique copy for each user. You can even rename and move the shared folder elsewhere in your account, and it won't affect the other members while still syncing with their copies of the folder.
Sure, there's Dropbox's deduplication magic happening in the background so each unique file chunk (remember, files are stored in chunks, not complete files) is not duplicated on the back-end servers, but each user does have their own unique copy of the files in their account. If I make a change in a folder that is shared with me, that change is not seen instantly for all other members, which it would if I was editing the same copy as theirs. That edited file is synced to all of the other members of the share.
- Harry Molyneux3 years agoHelpful | Level 6What benefit is there to having it sync not in real time? And the ability rename a folder doesn’t justify having to pay for the pricing. You could just create a shortcut to it and rename is whatever you like in another app like Google Drive.
Why are you defending this so adamantly? Do you work for Drop Box? - adrian296303 years agoHelpful | Level 5
That is my opinion on this as well. It seems to me that if Person A has an account with a folder in it and wants to share access or content of that folder with Person B there is no real reason why Person B should need to have or acquire limits equal to Person A.
In my case, Person A asked me to help to upload documents to his folder because there were a substantial number and he did not have time to do all of them. I did not need to view these, read them, or interact with them just upload them to a folder in Person A's Dropbox account.
As far as I was concerned I was not sharing the documents just having a shared access to the folder where the documents were required to be stored.
As others have stated it seems to me this idea of sharing resulting in the content being held in both "shared" accounts and therefore requiring both account holders to have the same level of storage is nothing more than a con.
- ScreamUser13 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Sorry, Rich. That has to be new. The number of times I've put files in a shared folder and had a co-worker delete them has been numerous. I will only share files by link.
If I hadn't had so many instances of having to relocate files and repost them to the shared folder, I would have assumed I was wrong. But I don't know where you're getting your information or use case.
And answer the question: does your W2 / 1099 come from Dropbox or a parent company or somehow mean you work for them?
- Rich3 years ago
Super User II
Harry Molyneux wrote:
What benefit is there to having it sync not in real time?It does sync in real-time but it's not instantaneous like it would be if it were just one folder that everyone could see. It takes time, albeit a very short amount of time, to sync from one location to the other.
Why are you defending this so adamantly? Do you work for Drop Box?I'm not defending anything. I'm providing information on how (and why) it works the way it does. No, I don't work for Dropbox. I'm a user, just like you.
- Rich3 years ago
Super User II
adrian29630 wrote:
I did not need to view these, read them, or interact with them just upload them to a folder in Person A's Dropbox account.
The owner of the folder could send you a File Request, which allows you to upload directly to someone else's account. You wouldn't be able to soo or interact with the files after you upload them, and they would never be in your own account.
- Rich3 years ago
Super User II
ScreamUser1 wrote:
Sorry, Rich. That has to be new.
I'm not sure what specific part you're referring to, but none of this is new. It's how shared folders have worked since their inception.
And answer the question: does your W2 / 1099 come from Dropbox or a parent company or somehow mean you work for them?No, I don't work for Dropbox. I'm just a user like you.
- Coastalvis2 years agoNew member | Level 2
Dropbox is the only file sharing software I have come across like this. Googledrive does not work in this way. You can give someone access to your files with various different permissions. Its only the person hosting the files which has to pay for the space, which is the logical solution. Dropbox has adopted the greedy monitization route with some totally backwards logic to back it all up. like many other users, Dropbox is always harrassing you to upgrade. Im really not sure why people use it over other options. What a load of rubbish, and the support is non existant too.
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