Business

Dropbox free accounts won't work anymore with more than three devices

Dropbox quietly introduced earlier this month a new device limit for free accounts.

Written by Catalin Cimpanu, Contributor March 14, 2019 at 9:35 a.m. PT

Dropbox has quietly updated its terms of service to limit free accounts to only three devices to which users can sync data.

The new rule entered into effect this month, according to an official Dropbox help page.

Users who will need to sync data to more than three devices will have to sign up to one of the company's paid membership plans, which start at $9.99/month (€8.25/month).

Users who linked more than three devices prior to March 2019 won't be impacted, but they won't be able to link new ones until they remove old ones and will have to stay under the new three-device limit when they do.

Dropbox Business users aren't impacted by this new rule, as all business accounts are on commercial memberships and users and companies can link unlimited devices.

Dropbox users weren't too happy today when the news broke about the new device-per-account limit.

Free storage takes a hit. Google with 15GB, Dropbox with 3 devices, FB/Insta should follow soon etc. Where is the startup helping me manage my unnecessary cloud usage. Take my $. https://t.co/Jxz6u0619B
— Sudhanshu Garg (@esgarg) March 14, 2019

Dropbox users with a free account can now only link up to three devices to Dropbox. But if you have more than three computers, phones, or whatever, you can still unregister a device to add a new one -- it's just going to be a pain for multi-device folks. https://t.co/VubadTN6eF
— Liliputing (@liliputingnews) March 12, 2019

The new account limit is bound to push a few users towards rival services, and especially towards Google Drive.

For some users, the ability to sync between multiple devices is more important than the total account storage space or any bandwidth limitations.

Also, having to tinker with a Dropbox's account settings page to remove old devices and add new ones is a chore that many users won't be willing to endure every time they change devices when they have no-headaches alternatives.