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Forum Discussion
earned storage space suddenly disappeared
I had earned bonus space for a total of a bout 7 Gb (referrals and school bonus). That has served me well for the past 10 years. Today, all of a sudden and without a warning, I get a message that my dropbox is full (3.1 Gb) and exceeds my storage space (2 Gb).
How can the earned space be restored?
I changed my account email address about 1 year ago, without affecting my dropbox storage. I have not change computers. I have tried help, chatbot, and community forum.
Please, can somone from dropbox check into this? Otherwise no help is accessible.
swassner wrote:
Has Dropbox rescinded it's original offer?
Dropbox doesn't remove space earned through referrals. Other types of bonus space do expire, depending on the promotion at the time. You can see a list of all the space you've earned along with that which has expired on your Referrals page.
Did you actually lose space, as in your total storage quota was reduced, or do you just have so much stored in your account that you've run out of space.? If it's the latter, check your Backups for used space. Also, check your Plan page for a breakdown of your current usage. Provide a screenshot of that page if you can.
I feel your frustration.
- Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Hi Marsie1, I’d be glad to look into this for you!
Is it possible that the extra space you’re missing from your Dropbox account was previously added via a promotion which has now expired?
In order to double check this, you can go here and scroll down the page a bit.
If you wish, you can also send me a screenshot of what you see there.
Keep me posted!Dear Nancy,
thanks for your quick response. I had added my extra promotional space more than 8 years ago and it would be rather unlikely that it expires now after all this time. I also did not receive any warning (email notification) that I am running out of space.
After this "storage space exceeded" scare, I deleted a lot of files on dropbox. Unfortunately, I inadvertently removed files in a shared folder that I meant to keep and which are now permanently gone unless I pay for a "Rewind" ....
However, now my extra space shows up again (see screenshot):
The only explanation I have is that I may have exceeded the extra space limit while I was moving files from my laptop via a shared dropbox directory. This may have triggered the "space exceeded" dropbox pop-up. Strangely enough, that did not show the actual space, but indicated that I exceeded 2 Gb (the slider diagram in the Account Plan tab was red, and said "Using 3.1 GB of 2 GB"). I knew I had more than 2Gb and was naturally worried that the extra space had suddenly disappeared.
I am relieved my extra space is not gone after all. It's just a pity that this intermezzo caused me to lose shared files I meant to keep.
I am not sure if I should accept my explanation as a solution.
After all, the mixed-up earned space accounting from dropbox was part of the problem: Pop-up alarm that allotted space of 2Gb was full, while my actual space was 7.88 Gb - which apparently I had exceeded). This mix-up has not been fixed.
Perhaps this message exchange can serve as a helpful warning to others, when actual earned space is not correctly shown.
I just received an out-of-storage message.
It seems to me that I used to have a bunch more storage than I do now that I earned by inviting about 8 or 10 other users to sign up for new accounts. Has anyone else had storage that seems to have been taken away?
Not that I know of.
If you mean: was I on a team that worked at Dropbox, then the answer is no.
If you're asking if I was part of a "team" that joined together and I was given credit for recruiting several others to sign up for Dropbox, then I'm not sure. I guess it depends how "team" is or was defined at the time.
I have! I joined sometime ago and earned 15gb of space. It now appears i have only 2gb. Any idea on how i can get back the lost space?
- Walter
Hi LoebLaw1, sorry to hear about this.
Could you take a look at your account's plan tab and let us know what's reported in regards to your quota?
Did you earn the additional space through referrals or a promotion perhaps?
If it's the latter, note that some promotions are only for a fixed period of time and usually expire.
Hi, I've got an email from Dropbox, which said "Out of storage space? No problem. We’ll give you an additional 250MB for free once you complete a few steps". I've completed those steps, but nothing happened, the limit is still the same. Anybody has any ideas why?
- Megan
Hi Senya, I'd be more than happy to help!
First and foremost, can you check your account's plan page, and see how much storage you're using? Is it possible that you're using way beyond your base quota?
Also, it might sound trivial, but have you completed all of the steps mentioned in the email?
Let me know more!
For the past few months I have been notified that my "storage was full" (2GB) and indicate's that I could buy additional storage. My account indicates that I have 8.5GB of storage (Free - gained by referrals, etc). Who/How do I rectify this?
Error (on my part) My account now indicates the proper storage...
I should have looked (again) before the above post...
I should have a total of 5.25 GB of storage available, based on the 2GB free + 3.25 GB bonus space earned, but my storage limit has dropped down to 2 GB out of the blue! Does anyone know what might have caused this?
From the "refer a friend" page, I have this:
I am a very early user of Dropbox and recommended multiple people for membership. I was awarded extra storage space for free and have had a total of 19 gbytes of storage space for many years. I now find that while I have used 14+ gbytes of space., I am told that I have no space and have to upgrade. The files I have in dropbox are available but I can't add anything. What is going on here? Has Dropbox rescinded it's original offer?
- Rich
Super User II
swassner wrote:
Has Dropbox rescinded it's original offer?
Dropbox doesn't remove space earned through referrals. Other types of bonus space do expire, depending on the promotion at the time. You can see a list of all the space you've earned along with that which has expired on your Referrals page.
Did you actually lose space, as in your total storage quota was reduced, or do you just have so much stored in your account that you've run out of space.? If it's the latter, check your Backups for used space. Also, check your Plan page for a breakdown of your current usage. Provide a screenshot of that page if you can.
I looked at my plan page and it says that I have Dropbox basic with 2gbytes. it also says
Regular files (545.9 MB) Backup (14.4 GB) Shared files (17.5 MB) Unused space (0 bytes).The referral page saysTotal bonus space earned12.88 GB
