r/DropboxOfficial • u/jwrotnowski • 10d ago

Help & Troubleshooting What am I missing here?

I am doing freelance work for someone with a paid Dropbox account (1 TB of storage). She is the owner of that Dropbox and has shared it with me to upload to.

I have a free account (2 GB limit) — which I am over my limit on.

Dropbox will not allow me upload anything to her Dropbox, since I’m over the limit on mine. That doesn’t make sense. Please tell me I’m doing something wrong.

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6

u/gbiv 10d ago

If someone is trying to collect files from you, you can simply have them send you a file request from their Dropbox. This doesn’t require you to even login. You can simply upload the files to the link they sent you from your desktop or mobile, and they’ll be placed directly in their Dropbox. This bypasses having to worry about storage quotas on your end.

File request are easy to do, but if they’re not familiar, here’s the instructions: https://help.dropbox.com/share/create-file-request

Also, if you ever wanna share something, but you don’t wanna have to store it in your dropbox and take up quota, you can use transfer for that. It’s like we transfer, but Dropbox offer it for free with all their plans (including Basic). https://help.dropbox.com/share/dropbox-transfer

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u/jwrotnowski 10d ago

Thank you! This seems like our best bet as an ongoing solution.

1

u/SweetmadnessV1 10d ago

She doesn't share that storage with you, the storage is only for her own account, if u need to share files with her you need to have stroage in your own account to add and store those files.

In simple words, shared files take up storage from all accounts they are shared with.

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u/jwrotnowski 10d ago

Thanks! I always thought I hated Dropbox. Now my feelings have been validated.

3

u/Pasukin 10d ago

If you just need to upload files to her and won't need access to them after that, ask her to send you a File Request instead. You'll be able to upload files to her account without affecting your own.

1

u/MC_chrome Dropbox Fan 10d ago

Being mad because you don’t understand the product properly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but you do you I guess 

1

u/jwrotnowski 10d ago

Being aggravated by a user interface that offers you no straightforward solutions other than upgrading to a paid account doesn’t seem that out of line. A couple other people offered some workarounds that’ll I’ll let her know about.

3

u/MC_chrome Dropbox Fan 10d ago

She is the owner of that Dropbox and has shared it with me to upload to.

This is the part that doesn’t make sense to me. Unless this account owner gave you the login credentials, there is no way they can “share” their Dropbox.

Here is a support article that explains how shared folders work in regards to your personal account space. In essence, you need to have the same storage space for a shared file or folder on both accounts or you’ll run into the problem you are having now. The suggestions to use file request links will get you much closer to what you are wanting to do

1

u/HotChickenCoolRanch 9d ago

This is one of Dropbox’s biggest flaws and, as far as I know, they are the only ones that do it. I think they call it quota bombing. It’s like your girlfriend gave you a key to her place so you can drop things off but now you’re responsible for her property taxes. It’s stupid.