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Forum Discussion
Dropbox full because of shared folder
Hi, i have a dropbox account and the free space that i have is full because of the files inside the shared folder that i have with some friends.
Is there a way to avoid that the shared folder that ...
Your English is very good Michele - well done!
And no, if you need read write access to that folder if will use your quota. If you just need read only access leave the share and ask the other person sends you a read only Shared link.
You can LEAVE and REJOIN a shared folder when ever you like.
So one method of getting space is to LEAVE the shared folder. And REJOIN it when you need it.
If you ONLY need some files from the shared folder and ONLY at some times, I would additionally ask the owner of the shared folder for a LINK to it, in that way you can use the link to it and download via web the files you need when you need them.
Although I don't agree with Dropbox, and this is the primary reason I won't spring for Pro, I understand why they did this.
It's simple, really. Say, someone creates 10 free accounts. 10 x 2GB = 20GB. Now, that person, from each account shares a folder with his main account. That person just got more, free, space.
Every few weeks, I realize there's a new e-mail waiting for me off in that "Forums" tab of Gmail, and I skim through all the new comments in this thread before archiving the chain and forgetting about it for another few weeks. Every time, it's always the same back-and-forth.
- Another perfectly valid complaint about how shared folders affect storage quotas in a completely unexpected manner.
- An explanation of how shared folders affect storage quotas, whether or not the user indicated that they already understood that.
- A reply from a user about how it's not intuitive.
- A detailed reasoning why Dropbox chose to implement shared folders in this manner, failing to address the point about how it isn't intuitive.
Let's clear something up: we are not here trying to argue the facts. We understand how storage quotas are affected by shared folders. Painfully well, I might add. Some of us think this behavior should change, but that's actually a separate discussion that requires first-party input from the folks actually running Dropbox, and is beyond the scope of a thread on the forums.
The very fact that this thread exists underscores exactly the problem: that shared folders affect storage quotas in a completely non-intuitive way--a way that is not made apparent to the user without effectively resorting to reading the manual.
Does it make some amount of sense for them to operate this way from a technical standpoint of having to host and serve the massive amount of data that Dropbox is responsible for? Yes, but again: this is a separate discussion.
Your users are coming to you--many of them not knowledgeable in the field of information systems--telling you they are confused by a specific implementation detail of your platform, and all they get in response is a technical, detailed explanation of why it works the way it does. What's more, each user--sometimes the same user, multiple times--is having this explanation reworded at them, ad nauseam.
How does it fail to dawn on everyone that this is a completely inefficient way to handle the situation? If this information were simplified and presented in a concise manner, up front and without having to dig around, this thread wouldn't even have been made.
And that, right there, is exactly the point I was trying to get across two pages ago. Your users have certain preconceived expectations, and if you are going to operate against those--as is Dropbox's right--is it not obvious that you should make that clear up front instead of waiting until it frustrates someone enough to complain, possibly abandoning your service?
