earned storage space suddenly disappeared

[Marsie1]

I had earned bonus space for a total of a bout 7 Gb (referrals and school bonus).  That has served me well for the past 10 years. Today, all of a sudden and without a warning, I get a message that my dropbox is full (3.1 Gb) and exceeds my storage space (2 Gb).

How can the earned space be restored? 

I changed my account email address about 1 year ago, without affecting my dropbox storage. I have not change computers. I have tried help, chatbot, and community forum. 

Please, can somone from dropbox check into this? Otherwise no help is accessible. 

[ragonesi]

I feel your frustration.

[Nancy]

Hi @Marsie1, I’d be glad to look into this for you!

Is it possible that the extra space you’re missing from your Dropbox account was previously added via a promotion which has now expired? 

In order to double check this, you can go here and scroll down the page a bit. 

If you wish, you can also send me a screenshot of what you see there. 

Keep me posted!

[Marsie1]

Dear Nancy,

thanks for your quick response. I had added my extra promotional space more than 8 years ago and it would be rather unlikely that it expires now after all this time. I also did not receive any warning (email notification) that I am running out of space. 

After this "storage space exceeded" scare, I deleted a lot of files on dropbox. Unfortunately, I inadvertently removed files in a shared folder that I meant to keep and which are now permanently gone unless I pay for a "Rewind" ....

However, now my extra space shows up again (see screenshot): 

The only explanation I have is that I may have exceeded the extra space limit while I was moving files from my laptop via a shared dropbox directory. This may have triggered the "space exceeded" dropbox pop-up. Strangely enough, that did not show the actual space, but indicated that I exceeded 2 Gb (the slider diagram in the Account Plan tab was red, and said "Using 3.1 GB of 2 GB"). I knew I had more than 2Gb and was naturally worried that the extra space had suddenly disappeared. 

I am relieved my extra space is not gone after all. It's just a pity that this intermezzo caused me to lose shared files I meant to keep.

[Marsie1]

I am not sure if I should accept my explanation as a solution. 

After all, the mixed-up earned space accounting from dropbox was part of the problem: Pop-up alarm that allotted space of 2Gb was full, while my actual space was 7.88 Gb - which apparently I had exceeded).  This mix-up has not been fixed.

Perhaps this message exchange can serve as a helpful warning to others, when actual earned space is not correctly shown.

[Nancy]

Hi again, @Marsie1!

I’m happy to hear that your previous space is still available on your Dropbox account. 

As per your deleted files, can you take a look here perhaps and let me know if you’re able to restore them? 

Even in case that your account went over-quota at some point, it should still be showing the actual space you have, and not the minimum 2GB, so that’s a bit odd. 

If you happen to have any type of screenshots of the message you received, let me know and l’ll take a look for you.

[Marsie1]

Hi Nancy,

I did not take screenshots of the "over-quota" status. The dropbox icon in the lower left tray alerted me that my space was full. It showed a yellow triangle, red cross (?), exclamation mark (not sure) and a pop-up message that my dropbox was full. It was immediately noticable when I started using my PC that morning. 

You are correct: Even in case that my account went over-quota at some point, it should still be showing the actual space I have, and not the minimum 2GB. But in account settings, the entire "slider" diagram was red, with a maximum of only 2Gb shown.

This made me worry that my extra space had disappeared when in fact I had apparently exceeded my earned quota of 7.88 Gb. I also could not see by how much I had exceeded it. I remember seeing 3.1 Gb in the "over quota" screen. But did this mean I exceeded my earned space by 3.1 Gb or that I exceeded the (mistakenly) assumed 2 Gb space by 1.1 Gb?

Would be truly helpful if dropbox could fix this bug.

The removed folder is gone, I am afraid. Only "rewind" may help, but it's expensive.

[Nancy]

Hi again, @Marsie1, thanks for the extra info you've sent. 

Do you remember if the shared folder you mention was owned by somebody else or by you instead? 

We can perhaps check if there's another way to retrieve it. 

[Marsie1]

No, I don't remember who owned the deleted folder. I'm afraid I was the owner.

Is someone looking into the incorrect space counting issue I experienced when I exceeded the extra space?

thanks, Maria

[chuckbo]

I just received an out-of-storage message.

It seems to me that I used to have a bunch more storage than I do now that I earned by inviting about 8 or 10 other users to sign up for new accounts. Has anyone else had storage that seems to have been taken away?