Complicated Account Question

[TechChallengedLawyer]

I had my own Dropbox professional account.  I was then added to another law firm's Dropbox account - a Standard account.  I received my refund from Dropbox since I paid for the Standard account annually.  I do work for this other law firm from time to time and need regular access to it.

I now need to add an employee to my own law firm who does not need access to this other law firm's Dropbox but does need access to my firm's files.  However, I am now in the other firm's Standard plan.  How do I make it so I can add a new user that only has access to my firm's files and not this other firm while also making sure I have access to both the other firm's files and my own?

Thank you!

[Walter]

Hi there @TechChallengedLawyer - thanks for using Dropbox and posting on our Community!

Can you please let me know what your plan tab reports at the moment?

If you're part of a Dropbox for Business teams account, are you an admin of the team or just a member? 

Let me know more and we'll take it from there. 

[TechChallengedLawyer]

Walter,

Thank you for your response.  On the plan tab, I am listed as part of the other firm, under their account.  It's a Standard account.  I don't see anything about being an admin so I think I'm just a member.

[Hannah]

Hey @TechChallengedLawyer, sorry to jump in here.

Since you're a member of a Dropbox Business team, where do your own firm's files reside at the moment?

Are they in the folder with your name on it?

If you just want to share your own content and not the content of the team you're a member of, you can just create and share a folder with this user, so they can access the files you want them to.

They won't be a member of the team, just a member of the folder you will be sharing with them.

[TechChallengedLawyer]

Thanks for the reply, Hannah.  Right now, everything is on my personal iCloud.  Is it not possible to have my own business team and then also be a member of another business team?

[Hannah]

I'm afraid that a Dropbox account can be part of only one Dropbox Business team at a time.

But you could create a new, individual account, to save your own files and share them with anyone you want.

 And you can pair this individual account with the Business one, so you can access both of them from the same device.

I hope this helps!

[Rich]

---

@TechChallengedLawyer wrote:

Is it not possible to have my own business team and then also be a member of another business team?

---

Not with the same account, no. You'd need to use one account to create your Business team, then another to join someone else's team. Also, you can't sync two Business accounts to the same computer. You'd have to use one through the Dropbox website.

Some other things to consider, in case you aren't aware ...

• If you joined the other Business team with your personal account, you've effectively merged your account into theirs. Officially, they now own your account. If they remove you from the team without first converting your account back to an individual account, your account would be deleted. Make sure they know this when your work with them is complete. If the account gets deleted, the team admin only has seven days to restore the account.
• While your personal files are separate from the Business team that you joined, the team admin may have the ability to sign in as any member of the team. Doing so would give access to your personal files. If your intent is to just collaborate with another team and you want to keep your own files truly separate, use a different email address when joining someone else's team account.

[TechChallengedLawyer]

Okay I have created quite a mess here it seems.

My firm's business email/Dropbox account is what has been merged into this other firm's account.  So it seems to me the best thing to do would be to create a new business account using a new email address and add my new employee onto that one.  Does that sound like the best route?

[Rich]

---

@TechChallengedLawyer wrote:

So it seems to me the best thing to do would be to create a new business account using a new email address and add my new employee onto that one.

---

If it were me, that would be the first step. Once I had a new Business account created, I'd move my files from the other account into the new Business account, so that the only thing left in the other account are the files needed for collaboration with the other business.

[TechChallengedLawyer]

This is very complicated because I also used Dropbox Fax and Dropbox Sign and those are associated with the account that is now with this other firm.  I'm not sure what to do.  Should I create this new email and then change my email address with Fax and Sign?  I am so confused.