I'm trying to gain access to my deceased father's Dropbox account

Hi sarah copland, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I'm sorry for your loss and the situation you're experiencing at this time.

As these are requirements by our security team to allow full access to another Dropbox account, currently, there isn't another method or documentation that can be used to gain access to the Dropbox account.

The only remaining possibility left to you would be if an existing device of theirs was still logged in to their account, thus giving you access to the account directly in order for you to download or copy the data elsewhere.

I hope the details I provided above were helpful, and if you have any further questions, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Hi there,

Thanks for your response.

In terms of the documents required I can look to getting a court order however there was no POA or anything to evidence this in the will. 

Unfortunately there is no way of accessing his dropbox via an existing device as it has locked out now. 

Is that really everything we can possibly do exhausted? If there is anything at all that can be done I would be most grateful. This is for my Mum as there are so many old memories stored in his dropbox account. Thank you.

sarah copland wrote:

Is that really everything we can possibly do exhausted? If there is anything at all that can be done I would be most grateful.

I dont work for Dropbox I'm afraid but what I'd say is if you could try and have some sort of court order that may help. 

Also, how long ago was it last accessed? Do you know? Accounts are removed after 12 months of inactivity so you may need to act quickly.

Hi Jay

Some progress on this, we have managed to access his account via one of his old devices, and as you suggested it was still logged in! There appears to be hundreds of photos there, however most of the images are greyed out and the message states "This file cant be previewed, to view this file open it on your computer". Have you any suggestions/thoughts as to what the problem could be please? As I said, the images are there just not showing (only a handful are). 

Many thanks in advance! 

Sarah

Hey sarah copland​, I'm glad to see that you managed to access the account.

Are you getting this error message when trying to view the files on the Dropbox website?

Do the files that give you this error have their extensions at the end of the name? For example, file name.jpg, file name.png, etc.?

If not, rename them to add the extension and the preview should work.

Let us know if that's not the problem.

Thanks Mark! I have made some progress, we have managed to access his account via one of his old devices, and amazingly it was still logged in! There are hundreds of photos there, however most of the images are greyed out and the message states "This file cant be previewed, to view this file open it on your computer". Have contacted Dropbox for any suggestions/thoughts as to what the problem could be....

Hi Sarah!

I replied to your previous response here; can you take a look and let me know if you can see it and if it helps?

Hi Hannah! 

Thanks for coming back to me.

Yes, I am getting the error messages in the Dropbox App (on an I-pad) when trying to view the files. I will try your solution this evening and let you know if it works. 

Thanks again, Sarah

Got it, thanks, Sarah!

If what I mentioned is not the issue in your case, please also send me a screenshot of the error, so that we can investigate further.

Hi Hannah, I attach a couple of screenshots of what I can see. Some files don't appear to have extensions at the end...

Thankyou!