Dropbox introduces 3 device limit on free accounts

I just deleted and moved a bunch of files from Dropbox to other services and then downgraded from the professional level to the free basic. I don’t use Dropbox enough to justify $100/annual cost. I like Dropbox for its sharing capabilities but we now have other alternatives and I see little reason to have redundant services.

This makes my macs and especially Hazel even more important!
This way I can still use dropbox as a dropfolder if needed, and move the data out via Hazel asap to make it available on all devices.

I’ve removed all other data and switched everything to iCloud now.

Not sure what exactly it is about Dropbox, but it just really works for me… I’ve tried to quit twice and I find my workflow suffers … sharing, easy linking, smart sync all work for me. It’s fast too. I do a lot of moving between computers, iPads and Phones and nothing seems as fast and seemeless to me. But I agree, it’s expensive and I hope to find a way to move on. Hoping iCloud Drive has some major upgrades in store :slight_smile:

A free Dropbox account isn’t really unlimited though. They had unlimited devices, but did have a limit on the amount of data you can store.

This move is not unlike what Evernote did when they realized they couldn’t take any more features away from the free plan. At that point, the limited your device count as well.

I’m sure Dropbox have reasons for making this change, but I’m scratching my head trying to figure out the angle. It won’t change the amount of data free customers are storing. It probably won’t significantly change the amount of bandwidth used (assuming you’r using LAN sync).

People are now scrambling to leave Dropbox rather than pay for the added devices. I take this as a hint. Dropbox ends up with one of these two …

  • More income from the same (or fewer) number of customers or
  • Fewer data sync demands (i.e. less load to support) for the same (or higher) income


JJW

I have a paid account. But if they had had this restriction in place, I probably never would have got to the point where I needed it.

Same, but I think that just means they grew and marketed the company correctly. Probably most of us got hooked on Dropbox before we realized we would be syncing it with our phones and tablets as well as our computers.

Well, it got me buying Plus.

1 Like

In the end it took me all of 10 mins to install OneDrive on all my devices, re-share a couple of folders and adjust my Hazel scripts on my Macs. I don’t have any apps that sync using Dropbox and get Office 365 paid for by my work. It’s not worth €100 a year to me, I only use it for automations and sharing, all my storage is in iCloud.

I assume it’s wither to entice - or drive away - those on the free tier who find the service useful enough to use it on 4+ devices they afford and own. If you have that many devices and resort to using the service, Dropbox probably rightfully thinks you should either want to pay for it or freeload on some other service.

I own a few apps which don’t or can’t use iCloud (mostly writing apps and the 2Do task manager, which I’m not currently using), and I haven’t hit the 3-device limit. But I do find Dropbox very useful for its non-syncing, file-sharing functionality, so if I ever do hit that limit I’ll just restrict sync to the three most-used devices. I’m not going to pay $100/yr for Dropbox either, and as a freeloader I understand that they may eventually further tighten restrictions on free accounts.

Upper right corner when viewing the doc in Paper?

1 Like

Which is OK. People with few devices won’t even notice. “Power users” with many devices might:

  • stick to their configuration for a while
  • leave Dropbox
  • leave Dropbox and go for iCloud…if they are 100% macOS/iOS
  • leave Dropbox and go for MS
  • leave Dropbox and find out there’s no better alternative, and many will decide Dropbox is essential
  • leave Dropbox and go for Resilio, ownCloud, whatever. Which can be a hassle.
  • just shut up and pay

Ah… It’s in the app on iOS but not on the web page in Firefox on my Mac.

I hate device limits because it always seems harder to audit devices than it is data. (Note: this is a design fault, not something inherent in devices vs amount of data.)

I used to run my life on Dropbox, but their past security problems and the horribly-behaved Mac app made me shift away. Now that there’s a hard device limit, I’ll delete the apps from my iOS devices and only use it on my Mac via CloudMounter. That way, clients can still send me folders of content easily but I won’t be tempted to use it for my personal data (& then run into the device limit).

So, in my case, Dropbox has not made money with this move, and in fact, will continue to lose money on me.

I’ve used several cloud services and Dropbox has always been by far the most reliable and most flexible. I get unlimited Google Drive space through work, but the only thing it is good for is basic file storage. Too many sync errors with common-use databases, etc. Dropbox is rock solid. A bigger commitment to iCloud might be in my future as I am all in with Apple, but it is not there yet (although I do use it more than I used to). Someone above mentioned its lack of flexibility and I agree.