Sharing folders without space

[Jim A.1]

I want to accept an invitation to share a folder but dropbox won't let me without buying more space.
what's the deal here? If the owner has the space why can't I accept the invitation, look at it and also send a file to it?

[Brian E.11]

Hey, I had a simple beginner's question I have a hard time time figuring out before pulling the trigger on a pro subscription.

Say I have a folder of family photos that I want other people to have full access to via their dropbox account. I set up this massive folder of high quality photos about a gig in size, and share the folder with a couple relatives who have a dropbox account.

With a regular account, having accepted the invitation that photo folder would eat into their storage quota. But with a Dropbox Pro account, I think I read somewhere that only the host takes the hit to their quota.

Is this the case or was that belief just a fevered dream?

[Mark]

It was a dream I'm afraid - or you've misread the Business promo.

For Pro users everybody takes the hit, for Business users it is done only once.

[310EI]

Hello, Brian...

I'd recommend sending a shared file link to the people you want to be able to see your family photos folder instead of sharing a collaborative folder. That method won't use any of their storage space quota and it will work for non-Dropbox members as well.

Of course, for you... upgrading to a Plus account will give you added benefits (no, I'm not a Dropbox employee😞

• 1 TB of storage (plenty of room for all of your photos and files).

• Set view only permissions on your collaborative folders.

• Allows you to use passwords and expiration dates on your folders/file links.

• Higher sharing limits (additional bandwidth allowed to download your shared links).

If you'd like to see how a shared folder link with a password is used, then look at my example folder.

• Password = share

You can see or download everything in my example folder without it utilizing any of your storage space quota.

Good luck.

[Brian E.11]

Ha, thank you Mark MC for the straight to the point direct answer, and thanks 310EI for the VERY detailed answer!

Unfortunately it looks like Dropbox Pro isn't the ultimate collaborative storage I was hoping it would be, but far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth when it comes to that much storage at that price.

Thanks everyone!

[310EI]

You're welcome, Brian.

[Mark]

If the owner has the space why can't I accept the invitation

Because it would then be in your account and so use your space.

[Jim A.1]

Can't I just view the folders in his space?

[Mark]

You can have read only access via https://help.dropbox.com/syncing-uploads/selective-sync-overview but then you can upload any of your changes

[Enriski]

This is happening because the content of the folder/file you're invited to combined with what you already have in your Dropbox exceeds your space. When invited to a shared folder Dropbox essentially "copies" the files to your Dropbox - this way you can have access to the files offline, etc.

You have few options;
a) you delete some of your files from Dropbox to make space.
a) owner of the shared folder reduces the amount of files/space in the shared folder to fit what you have available on your Dropbox.
c) instead of being invited to a share have the owner send you a link where you can just download the file(s) without adding to Dropbox (but this will not let you easily collaborate if that was the intended purpose of the share)