You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

djjones's avatar
djjones
New member | Level 2
4 years ago

"Couldn't extract files. Can only handle files up to 512 MB."

I have 2TB of available storage on my Dropbox account, but am unable to open a ZIP file (approx. 3.2GB) -- instead, I'm getting an error message that says "Couldn't extract files. Can only handle fil...
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  • dipoarowona's avatar
    dipoarowona
    2 years ago

    Hello, 

     

    As mentioned in the thread, zip files that are larger than 512 MB cannot be extracted. To avoid confusion, the "Extract all" button is now disabled for any zip files that pass this threshold. Therefore, to extract the zip file, you would need to first download it and then extract it locally on your computer.

     

    Thanks,

kingcharles's avatar
kingcharles
New member | Level 2
4 years ago

This limit is so utterly pathetic in 2021. I had ZIP files bigger than that in the mid-90s. Now I'm dealing with ZIPs of hundreds of gigabytes.

 

My old 386 PC could unzip a 600MB Zip.

 

Dropbox needs to fix this. Is this a code change or simply a configuration change? It is beyond frustrating.

 

I actually CAN'T download a file onto my local computer because there is no fixed Internet where I live (center of Chicago) and I am forced to use cell data for everything. So that solution doesn't work for me. Especially as I would have to download and then upload the uncompressed data afterwards. Just one file would kill off my entire quota of transfer for the month.

 

What is the policy of other storage providers? I can't imagine any of Dropbox's competitors have such a lame limit?

  • etaygudai's avatar
    etaygudai
    Helpful | Level 5
    2 years ago

    Hi,
    It would be appreciated if this limitation of 5xx MB cab be increased.

    It is indeed something Dropbox MUST consider

     

    Regards

    Etay G

    • anonymous's avatar
      anonymous
      2 years ago

      I don't get the error abour 512MB - when I just tried to unzip a 1.3GB file in the web view, I get message "1 file couldn’t be automatically unzipped." No further info, no mention of a max file size, nothing.

       

      I was about to come back to Dropbox from pCloud but won't if I can't unzip files directly in Dropbox. 

      • etaygudai's avatar
        etaygudai
        Helpful | Level 5
        2 years ago

        Indeed My Mistake 1.5 G and above I get the same message.

        I think that Dropbox MUST take it into consideration ( e.g as many customers using dropbox for pictures stored in zip files )

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