How to Disable Dropbox Devices to Meet the New Free User Restrictions
Dropbox has done horrible things to its “regular” users, which is free. The company quietly added a new disclaimer that limits these accounts to just three devices. To use your Dropbox account on four or more devices, you must pay for the premium version of the service, which will cost you at least $ 9.99 per month or $ 99.99 per year.
If you already had a free Dropbox account before switching, there is both good and bad news. Dropbox will not deactivate any devices if you exceed this new limit. So, if you have 10 devices synced to one free Dropbox account, they will all continue to work. Uf.
However, users with more than three devices connected to their accounts will not be able to sync any new hardware until they turn off all but two of their devices under the new limitation. For example, if you decide to purchase a new phone, you will have to unplug the devices to access your files. Even for people who regularly use three devices (or fewer), this is likely to cause some problems down the road and push you to comply, upgrade to premium, or ditch Dropbox entirely.
This means that you will most likely have to spend some time browsing and disconnecting some of your older devices. To do this online, log into Dropbox, click the profile icon in the upper-right corner of the window, and go to Settings. In the settings menu, click on Security, then scroll down to the Devices section, which will show all the devices you used to sign in to Dropbox. If you are even a little like me, the list will be very long.
Going forward, if you have a free Dropbox account, you’ll want to make a mental map of how you plan to use the service. In other words, think about how you use Dropbox on a daily, weekly, and even monthly basis: where are you most likely to benefit from? Where will it save you the most time? Where do you refer to your files often and not sparingly ? Take all the elements, weigh them in your head, and use that to decide which devices should be able to access your account and which shouldn’t. It’s a pain – and a stupid pain given that many of us live in a multi-device world – but it’ll save you time and hassle as you transition into the new, limited life of a free Dropbox user.