How to fix ‘Not Enough Space to Access Shared Folder’ in Dropbox

By
Valeriy Odintsov
-
0
1395

Dropbox is an amazing cloud storage platform that allows us to store and manage files, photos, documents, and videos on the go. With an Internet connection, you can access your files in Dropbox anytime, anywhere, though it’s more reliable than carrying a hard drive everywhere. Dropbox is available in the web interface, you can also download the Dropbox app to your PC, and both features are the same.

With all these advantages, Dropbox can sometimes give out failures. One such failure is when Dropbox reports that there isn’t enough storage space to access a folder. Well, if you run into such a problem, you should know that you can fix it. Let’s take a closer look at how to do it.

What is a cloud service?

Secure storage of information is the most important requirement of our time. However, the spread of computers and mobile gadgets with access to the Internet has led to another problem – ensuring public access to data.

What if the same files need to be accessed from a home PC, work laptop, smartphone, or tablet? Copying them to different devices all the time isn’t an option. Moreover, USB sticks can’t provide enough security and often the information on them is irretrievably lost.

In this case, the ideal solution is to store files somewhere on a remote server. Then you can connect to it from any PC or other device, read or modify documents and save them in the same place. And because the data on the servers is duplicated many times, the risk of losing them is practically zero. You can also share your files simply by sending others a link to them, like in Google Drive.

Such services are called cloud services, and they’re very common now, thanks to their convenience. One of these cloud services is Dropbox, which, of course, has already made a name for itself. Nevertheless, there are no perfect services, and Dropbox sometimes makes mistakes. Fortunately, they can be fixed in most cases.

Read Also:

How to solve ‘Not Enough Space to Access Shared Folder’ in Dropbox

This error occurs if someone shares a folder with you that is larger than the space you have left. This prevents you from accessing it. For example, if you have a 2GB account and you are using 1.5GB of space, you won’t be able to accept shared folders larger than 5GB.

Anyway, you can try to free up some space in Dropbox. If you’ve been using Dropbox for a long time, you probably have a lot of unnecessary files piled up. And if you used Dropbox to collaborate on projects before, chances are that you’re still subscribed to some shared folders that you no longer need. To save space, you can delete these unnecessary items, just like you can do in Google Drive. To do so, you can follow these steps:

  • First of all, open the Dropbox website and sign in to your account, if needed.
  • Then, click on the “three dots” icon next to the file or folder you want to remove and select the “Delete” option.
  • Finally, just click “Delete” again to confirm.

In addition, you can also clear the Trash in Dropbox. Deleted files won’t disappear forever, but will be stored in the Trash for 30 days so that users can recover files in case they accidentally delete important files. However, the files in the Trash also count towards Dropbox storage. Therefore, you can go to the Trash and carefully delete unnecessary files.

How does Dropbox work?

Dropbox cloud storage is just one of the services that allow you to store any files on a remote server. Simply put, it’s a cloud storage service. Dropbox gives the average user access to files from any device. Because they’re not on your normal home PC, it’s enough to connect to the server, and you can immediately see all your folders, documents, photos, videos, and everything else that has been saved in this cloud.

The second reason you need Dropbox is to share files. The service allows you to get a link to any file. Then you can send that link to the right person or share it on social networks, and other people can download the file for themselves. For example, you can also synchronize Dropbox with Microsoft Office to save documents in the cloud at once.

How to expand Dropbox space

You can expand your Dropbox space using the upgrade option to add more gigabytes. However, it’s not the only way. If you don’t want to delete the files and folders that you have in Dropbox, you can get more space for free without upgrading your account.

Getting Started Checklist

The first you can do is to complete the Dropbox “Getting Started” checklist. After completing this guide, you will be able to earn up to 250 MB in total. They will be automatically added to your account.

Invite friends

Nevertheless, the best free way to get more space in Dropbox is to invite friends. Dropbox gives you a unique invite link that you can share with your friends. For each friend who clicks on this link, you can get a total of 500 MB.

So you can invite your friends for a total of 16 GB. In other words, you can invite 32 friends. The important thing is that the extra space on your account doesn’t expire and you can use it at any time.

Join the Dropbox Community Forum

You can also earn free space by participating in the Dropbox community forum. By helping other community members and getting “likes” or standing out with your answers, you can be rewarded with a “Mighty Answer” badge. By earning this badge, you’ll get as much as 1GB of extra space in your Dropbox account.

Read Also:

What are the benefits and drawbacks of Dropbox?

All in all, this cloud storage isn’t bad. It’s quite easy to use. It can also be shared by a group of users. However, there are some disadvantages, because of which many people prefer to use other similar services:

  • Too little space is available for free – only 2 GB.
  • Paid plans are expensive for most – to get 1TB of space, you have to pay $9.99 a month. The closest competitors have significantly lower prices, although many free plans are enough.
  • There are complaints about security.

The biggest disadvantage is the small amount of cloud space which discourages most users. Nowadays, when even smartphones have a memory of several gigabytes, 2 GB doesn’t look serious at all.

Dropbox is very conservative. There are no promotions, there are no options to increase space other than buying an expensive paid plan. That’s why inviting other users for 500 MB of space is the only profitable tool to get some free space in the cloud.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR