Dropbox limits free accounts to 3 devices

[Hemmi]

I never did get an email from Dropbox about this. I found it very easy to see what devices I had linked. Just opened Dropbox on my tablet and chose Settings. It told me I was over my device limit and told me what devices I had linked. Deleted two of them that I don't use anymore anyway and now I'm down to my 3. It'll work for now.

[Tarana]

Ah, the tablet. On the web page, there is no 'settings' option for me to select. Will check tablet.

[stumped]

Originally Posted by Hemmi

I never did get an email from Dropbox about this.

same here. I read a reference to it in a thread somewhere, thought surely not... googled it...

i have about 15Gb of dropbox free runnign on about a dozen devices [ PCs, tablets }. I also have some unused dropbox accounts, because I used to add dropbox via a "referral" to a different email, to any new device - for the extra free storage credit.

the 2 things that put me off paying for it.
1) no cheap tier - and i don't need 100Gb or more. the largest thing I have in dropbox is a 2GB calibre library backup which I one-way sync into daily.

what I do find very useful is keeping lots of simple text files in there , like to-do lists, which I can access and update from any device. Using simple text files suit me better than learning to use a proprietary notes program like one note or ever note.

2) Of greater concern - there are lots of horror stories on-line about Dropbox refusing to refund duplicate/accidental payments. Allegedly you cannot get money back from them ever, for any reason short of dying - and even that is debatable

if I did need more + paid for storage, I think I would go for Google One, but I hate signing up for subscriptions. I'd rather just buy a spare USB drive or two. I have several Western Digital 2TB passport drive, in different colours. very quiet and reliable. All our large media file are on those adn linked to Plex servers for LAN access

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by stumped

2) Of greater concern - there are lots of horror stories on-line about Dropbox refusing to refund duplicate/accidental payments. Allegedly you cannot get money back from them ever, for any reason short of dying - and even that is debatable

I use PayPal for my Dropbox payments.

Originally Posted by stumped

if I did need more + paid for storage, I think I would go for Google One, but I hate signing up for subscriptions. I'd rather just buy a spare USB drive or two. I have several Western Digital 2TB passport drive, in different colours. very quiet and reliable. All our large media file are on those adn linked to Plex servers for LAN access

I use USB drives too. But they don't protect your data in the case of fire, for example. You'd have to keep an off-site copy and update it regularly. That would be far too much bother for me (I work from home, so cannot keep a drive at my workplace, which would be the simplest solution for most people). Besides, USB drives are known to fail sometimes. I would not like to rely solely on them.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by haertig

I don't use DropBox. I use NextCloud, which I host myself on my own server. Not for the faint-hearted, you do have to know something about computer, database, webserver, and complex application administration. You can simplify things a bit by running NextCloud from a Docker container. But then, uhm, you have to know about Docker administration. I don't know your level of system administration experience - the NextCloud solution may or may not be for you.

I'm pretty out of date these days but I retired after 35 years as a programmer. Most of that was doing low-level systems programming but I did some application and database programming as well. I retired 25 years ago so I'm sure it's changed by now. I've written more database systems than I've used.

This isn't really about a server for me, though. I store some books on Dropbox but that's a secondary use. My main use was to sync my position in books so when I went from one device to another Moon+ would know where I left off on the other device. It's been a very good system and it works well. Much better and faster than Kindle's device syncing.

However I jumped the gun and it turns out that it's still working just fine for me. It makes it slightly more difficult to send books to Dropbox but not enough to be a problem. The biggest problem was that I panicked a little.

Barry

[barryem]

I'm not really concerned that much with data protection. I'm well backed up and I have copies of my important files in another location and even if I did lose them it wouldn't be a serious problem. That's one of the benefits of living a simple life now that I'm retired and poor. Poverty is so nice.

I just want to be able to sync Moon+ between devices. I'm a gadget lover and I have lots of them.

I did find the explanation on Dropbox's site finally and I got my devices cleaned up. Here's a link to the page with the explanations although several posts in here have already explained it:

https://help.dropbox.com/mobile/unli...omputer-mobile

Barry

[Deskisamess]

I had 23 devices showing linked to Dropbox, a few from years ago that are no longer in use. I still have one too many...my iPhone, iPad Pro, our PC, and my iPad mini. I think I'm going to unlink the mini, as it's the least vital of my iDevices.

It's too bad the limit wasn't set at 4.

[yonkyunior]

Originally Posted by barryem

I just got a notice from Dropbox that they're now, as of March, limiting us to only 3 devices. I read on a lot of devices and keep ebooks there and I use it to sync between devices with Moon+. They've just made Dropbox useless to me.

I checked and it seems that I have 53 devices registered on Dropbox. They aren't removing devices but till I get it down below 3 I can't add any more. I don't own 53 devices and most of the ones I do own don't have Dropbox installed, so I'm guessing they're counting every device I've ever used with Dropbox over the years. I've been a Dropbox user since they began.. I have no obvious way to disconnect older devices. I've been looking for ways to do that but I don't find any. I could probably live with 3 devices if I knew how to get rid of the old ones.

I did send an email to their support asking about that but if it's like most email supports it'll take a few back and forths to get resolved, if it ever does.

I'm pretty upset about this. I had thought of Dropbox and one of the stable things in my life. I guess I was wrong.

I tried syncing with Google Drive, which Moon+ also supports, but it's extremely slow. Syncing with Dropbox was so fast I didn't notice it. I just closed the app and it recorded my position. With Google Drive it takes from 30 seconds to a minute. A couple of times it took over a minute.

To make matters worse I've been reading on my phone a lot lately and Moon+ is a bit hard on the battery so I bought a second phone, a cheap one that'll be a decent one for reading, I hope. I don't plan to have a carrier for it. I was just going to use Wifi and make this my reading phone. I'm waiting for it to be delivered today but when it gets here it's not going to be very useful now. I'm not sure I would have bought it if I'd known about this.

Will some nice person please tell me to relax because things are never as bad as they seem at first? I know it's not true but please tell me anyway.

Barry

in https://www.dropbox.com/account/security
devices, i have 2 and and when i hover on them theres " X " symbol do delete it, i had tried and i can unlink the devices connected to my dropbox.

[barryem]

Yeah I found that and deleted all but 2 of mine. I panicked. The problem isn't as bad as I first thought.

I initially had 53 devices linked and I don't even own 53 devices that can use Dropbox. A few of them were from years ago. Several were devices I don't recognize. But they're gone now.

Barry

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by barryem

Yeah I found that and deleted all but 2 of mine. I panicked. The problem isn't as bad as I first thought.

I initially had 53 devices linked and I don't even own 53 devices that can use Dropbox. A few of them were from years ago. Several were devices I don't recognize. But they're gone now.

Barry

Its a good security practice anyway to remove old devices for most online accounts. I usually do so every few months for my google, microsoft, amazon prime, dropbox in the future probably will need a service that audits all our accounts to remove legacy authorisations.

[stumped]

thinking it through, i previously said I have no plans to buy a new device, but if I eber needed to reset or redo a windows install to an existing PC, dropbox would probably s see that as a new device and not allow be to register it
i don't know for sure how they track devices, whether it is only something in windows registry or maybe they capture some hardware ID value. They do do something as i discovered with referrals, if you try to refer the same device twice as a new-to-dropbox device, that fails.

having said that, I think you can still use unlimited devices if all you do is use a browser, and don't install the app

[library addict]

I haven't gotten an email about this yet either.

I have both PCs, my laptop, phone, and 2 tablets linked to my Dropbox account and use them all. So I will need to think about which 3 I want to keep.

Grrr!
ETA: My brain glossed over the if you already have devices registered they can stay part. So I just need all of my devices to last (or to get more disposable income).

[haertig]

Originally Posted by stumped

having said that, I think you can still use unlimited devices if all you do is use a browser, and don't install the app

The whole purpose of these cloud services is to sync devices so they all have the most up to date copy of your files. Taking away the ability to sync, and saying "use a browser instead", turns their cloud service into ... an ordinary website. Nothing wrong with websites, we've been using them for a long time. But they're not like a cloud service.

You've heard the saying, "One foot in the grave" (", and the other on a banana peel")? It looks like Dropbox just made a trip to the supermarket to buy the bananas. Their company is not long for this Earth IMHO. Much like PhotoBucket. I'm not sure it's the smartest business decision to lure customers in with free access, then later try to hold them hostage until they pay up.

That's the main reason why I never used DropBox, and set up my own cloud instead. I predicted this would be coming way back when. And I also predict that in the future there will be zero free devices allowed, it will be a 100% paid service. If they have any customers left by then.

Depending on online storage for your stuff is not a great decision IMHO. Not online backup services. Not DropBox like services. Not photo hosting services. Not eBook retailers who say they'll "keep all your books for you". You can USE these services for convenience, but don't DEPEND on them. You and you alone are responsible for storing and backing up your stuff. Use these services as a backup system, for convenience. Never as primary storage though.

[Vroni]

Originally Posted by barryem

I just got a notice from Dropbox that they're now, as of March, limiting us to only 3 devices. I read on a lot of devices and keep ebooks there and I use it to sync between devices with Moon+. They've just made Dropbox useless to me.

Why should they take care of you if you dont want to pay? Just imagine, people working there would like to buy some food, and servers are not for free.

[latepaul]

Wow - apparently I still have 43 devices on my account. A lot of them seem to be duplicates. I see the same hostnames for a lot of the PCs - which makes sense. I have always tended to re-install rather than upgrade my OS, at least with Linux. A few old phones that no longer belong to me. My Android TV stick that I never use any more.

The irony is I never use Dropbox since I set up my Nextcloud server.