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Forum Discussion
Why do shared files count against my space use???
Why are files shared with me counted against my space usage? Is this data counted twice? If someone who is sharing files with me is paying for this space, why should I have to pay as well just to acc...
dualice wrote:
Why are files shared with me counted against my space usage?
Because the files exist in your account.
When you have access to a shared folder, you're not accessing someone else's folder. You're accessing your own COPY of the folder within your account, and you need to have enough space available to hold that folder.
If you just need to view or download files that someone else is sharing with you, ask them to send you a shared link instead. A shared link is a view-only method of sharing and you don't even need a Dropbox account to access it.
Dropbox is telling me my storage has reached capacity, but I only have 1 file and a shared folder (from a friend that has 5GB max). It says I need to update to be able to upload more. Do shared folders count against your 2 GBs of space?
Rich
Super User II
Super User II
brandonbrant wrote:
Do shared folders count against your 2 GBs of space?
Yes.
When you're a member of a shared folder you aren't getting access to data in someone else's account. You have your own COPY of the data in your account, so you need to have enough available space to hold that data.
That sounds like dropbox is throttling my capacity based off of things I can't control. If a used folder gets 10 GBs of photos added to it, I need to be able to accommodate their data (i.e. spend more money just to be able to view them).
Thanks for the answer, I'm just going to cancel my account.
- Rich
brandonbrant wrote:
That sounds like dropbox is throttling my capacity based off of things I can't control.
You can certainly control it. You can easily remove the shared folder from your account. Also, if you only need view and/or download access to the files, ask the owner to send you a view-only shared link instead.
But then when I needed the files I would have to request access to that shared folder again.
What I'm hearing is if I want to collaborate and edit files from someone's shared folder, I will have to pay extra. There's no way around that. It doesn't matter if it's a word doc that 100kb, if that shared folder has more than 2GB worth of files I will have to have premium. And no one at Dropbox thinks that's an issue?
Thanks again for your help. I just deleted the account. Take Care.
