My personal account was accidentally merged into a Business Account

[LauraLOTC]

I have a personal Dropbox account for my work as a journalist. My business partner created a new Business Account and invited me to join only to access certain files. When I went to accept the system asked to "merge" the accounts and not understanding what that meant, I clicked yes. Then Dropbox notified me that my personal account was closed and they were refunding me my fee. How do I extricate myself from this? I do not want to own the Business Account or have that for my own Dropbox, I only need access to it. How do I restore my Personal account and revive the subscription? The person who created the new business account says it was a mistake, but doesn't know how to fix it and one can't "call" Dropbox, nor is there a way to change accounts. Help!

[Rich · Accepted solution]

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@LauraLOTC wrote:

When I went to accept the system asked to "merge" the accounts and not understanding what that meant, I clicked yes. ... How do I extricate myself from this?

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When you merged your account into the team account, you effectively made the team the owner of your account. In order to leave the team, the team admin needs to convert your account back to an individual account. It's important that they don't just remove you from the team as doing so would delete your account. If that were to happen, the team admin only has seven days to restore your account.

After your account has been converted back to an individual account you'll be back on the Basic plan. You can then resubscribe to Plus, Professional, etc.

[LauraLOTC]

Thanks so much for the info. We were able to get into the Admin portion and speak to a Dropbox team member who walked us through the steps to revert the account.

[gryphonox]

I have this same issue - in reverting to an individual account at the Basic Plan, will I lose content as the space required will need to be upgraded immediately?

[Megan]

Hi @gryphonox, I'd be happy to answer this for you! 

If you joined a Business team, and you want to revert back to an individual plan the best way to go on about it is to ask for the admin to convert your account, following these steps. 

Now onto your question: Please be aware that if your account is ever downgraded, Dropbox will not delete any of your files. 

If you are over quota all that should happen is that Dropbox will not sync any new files. 

Let me know in case you have any questions.

[EGuy]

When I worked recently with an NGO on a project, their business account took over my personal account. They shared files with me and all was OK. But when the project finished, they terminated my membership and instead of returning to my personal account, I am locked out of it because - I am told - me email address is no longer valid. So I cannot access any of the folders that were on my personal account, and I stood to lose everything. When I went back to the NGO, they reinstated my membership, so I can see all my original folders. BUT.... how can I get out from this org's business account and restore my personal account?

[Nancy]

Hi @EGuy, and thanks for posting this on the forum!

In this case, the admin of your Business team will need to follow the steps @Rich provided above and convert your account to an individual one again. 

If you have any further questions though, let me know.

[kevinvonesper]

Hello Community!

I've sent Dropbox several e-mails about this without a response so I am turning to you to see if you have any insight.  I am a freelancer and one of the companies I work for sent me an invite be part of their Business account when they were trying to send me an invite to download files for a project.  Skip to now, my entire dropbox account has been integrated into their account.  This was a total mistake and now I am trying to reverse this action/get my own private account back without cancelling dropbox and losing all my files.  Anyone have any ideas?  Thank you.

[Rich]

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@kevinvonesper wrote:

... one of the companies I work for sent me an invite be part of their Business account ... my entire dropbox account has been integrated into their account.  ... and now I am trying to reverse this action/get my own private account back ...

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You need to contact the team admin and ask them to convert your account back to an individual account. It's very important that they don't just remove you from the team as doing so would delete your account. If that were to happen they only have seven days to restore your account. They must convert it back to an individual account, and only the team admin can do this. Dropbox can't do it.

[ckonteos80]

I have a Dropbox Plus account and was added by mistake into a Business account. What is the correct procedure to be removed from the Business account and to return to the Plus account. Without losing any files or the yearly payment that I have made.

Thank you for your help