
Free Dropbox Accounts Now Only Sync to Three Devices - doppp
https://zapier.com/blog/free-dropbox-account-three-device-limit/
======
cfallin
For anyone looking for an open-source self-hosted alternative: I've been
really happy with Syncthing [0]. It's as invisible as Dropbox once set up.

It supports arbitrary topologies (two peer machines syncing, one central
always-on machine and lots of clients, etc.); with a VM in the cloud it can
closely emulate Dropbox (sans web-based file browser), but it will also
support e.g. just a desktop at home and a laptop that syncs when it's on the
LAN. Pretty useful!

[0] [https://syncthing.net/](https://syncthing.net/)

~~~
tryptophan
In my experience, syncthing works as advertised, however the UI is a bit of a
mess(as many open source projects have).

Especially the android app. The status of what the program is doing at the
moment is not communicated very well. The refresh rate for status updates
seems to be very low, and so you have connection status being disconnected,
then jumps to connected after a few seconds of frustration("why isn't it
connecting!!"). Then it sits there at 0% ("whats wrong!), and jumps to 64%
after a few seconds, then 99%. Then sits there("is something wrong?").
Eventually it finishes and everything is fine("yay it worked!").

Love the project. Hope they get UI experience down though, as it is the main
thing holding it back in my opinion.

~~~
shaan7
Try Nextcloud, the UI is quite good (both the website and the app).

~~~
paulcarroty
PHP, ultra slow in comparison with Dropbox or Google Drive.

~~~
shaan7
Slower than Dropbox but much, MUCH faster than Google Drive.

------
scarface74
Oh well. Instead of paying $10/month for a terabyte with Dropbox, I can pay
$10 for:

\- Office 365 with Word, PowerPoint, Excel for 6 users each with a terabyte of
storage.

\- iCloud with 2 terabyte that I can use to back up all of my devices.

Or I can get Amazon Cloud Storage up to 1TB for $60 a year.

EDIT: Corrected iCloud and OneDrive storage.

~~~
anbop
Try those companies' sync apps and you'll be back to Dropbox in a hot minute.
I once tried to use the OneDrive app and it said my files would take 9 hours
to back up, after an hour I gave up and tried Dropbox and it did it in an
hour.

~~~
asdff
Your first sync will be slow but after that onedrive is no different for me
than dropbox on Mac OS. In fact I put all my files in the onedrive folder now.
Integrates with office at work so I can save stuff to my personal laptop and
phone pretty easily.

~~~
xtracto
I don´t trust Microsoft with my data since they deleted all my mail history
back when they took over the Hotmail.com.

~~~
scarface74
That was back in 1997....

I’m sure they aren’t using the same infrastructure.

But that being said. My pictures and videos are automatically synced to:

Google Drive: (free, resolution reduced theoretically)

OneDrive

BackBlaze: iPhone -> OneDrive -> BackBlaze.

------
paxys
What's the point of having a freemium model if people can't actually use your
service as intended to see what benefits a full version will provide? If I'm
trying to open a file on my phone and the app won't let me log in, my reaction
isn't going to be "guess I should pay to upgrade" but rather to hit uninstall.

~~~
awill
they did what many other companies do. Use the freemium model to gain users
and publicity, then try to reduce costs and convert free users to premium by
destroying the free tier.

~~~
gboudrias
This seems... Unsustainable?

~~~
benjanik
Why is it unsustainable? After enough time, most people who would use it for
free already are. Now, the goal is to either get rid of the free users or
convert them to paid users.

------
herpderperator
I have been using a self-hosted Seafile[0] instance since 2014 hosted on my
Linux server. It's written in Python[1]. I have never had an issue with it. I
sync to my desktops, laptops, phones, etc. It works on all major platforms. It
has an online browser just like Dropbox too, supports link sharing, WebDAV,
etc. Its server-side storage is based on git[2].

I was really impressed with all the upgrades throughout the years. The upgrade
scripts that come with their installations which I run on my Linux box are
clearly labelled (e.g. 5.1_to_5.2.sh) and run successfully without giving me
random obscure messages that you might sometimes expect.

I recommend people check it out to see if it could work for you.

The only downside really is that since it's git-based storage, you can't just
specify "this is the directory I want to serve", rather you have to upload
everything via Seafile and it will write it out in its git filesystem (which
means it's duplicated if you already have a copy on your filesystem.) This is
in contrast to OwnCloud[3] I think, which will let you access/serve remote
files from their original location.

[0]
[https://www.seafile.com/en/download/](https://www.seafile.com/en/download/)

[1] [https://github.com/haiwen/seafile](https://github.com/haiwen/seafile)

[2]
[https://manual.seafile.com/develop/data_model.html](https://manual.seafile.com/develop/data_model.html)

[3] [https://owncloud.org/](https://owncloud.org/)

~~~
eemil
Agreed. BTW, parts of the server are actually written in C.

Best thing about Seafile is its syncing performance. Worlds better than
owncloud/pydio, and it doesn't choke on large directories.

------
pjmlp
As expected, the large majority of comments, on a site dedicated to starting
up a business, are how to use free alternatives or stop using it altogether.

~~~
WilliamEdward
Dropbox is no longer a startup. I think they'll be just fine without the
support of a niche internet circle.

~~~
pjmlp
Sure they will be just fine, my point was about how so many are eager to get
paid, yet vocal to pay for the work of others.

~~~
asdf21
It is ironic, you're right. But we all know Dropbox was never really respected
by the userbase here, beyond being a magical money making endeavor.

All the initial comments were about how Dropbox simply repackaged the
abilities of free built-in linux tools.

~~~
pjmlp
Surely Dropbox wouldn't have been a sucessful business if it was more than
just a repackaging of built-in UNIX tools.

~~~
asdf21
Hahahhaa. Ha. That's rich.

You don't think Facebook is a rebranding of friendster and myspace?

~~~
pjmlp
Actually one could even think beyond them to stuff like Hi5.

But no, there is the business value and the added services that the
competition failed to offer to stay in business.

------
paxys
Are there any open-source file syncing apps out there that you can point to
your own AWS account? Sure you are still dependent on another service, but S3
costs are negligible compared to Dropbox or others.

~~~
neurostimulant
NextCloud supports S3 as primary data storage.

[https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/13/admin_manual/configurat...](https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/13/admin_manual/configuration_files/primary_storage.html)

------
kristianp
Previous discussion 65 days ago, 52 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19362778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19362778)

------
nitemice
It's worth noting that only devices (PCs, mobiles) using the official Dropbox
app count as devices.

I've never used the official app to connect to Dropbox, so now I guess I never
will.

~~~
nextlevelwizard
How do you sync files? Do you just manually upload them throw browser and
download them from another?

~~~
copperx
It seems like the OP doesn't use Dropbox's killer feature, which is seamless
and faster syncing than anything else out there.

I don't see the point then of using Dropbox exclusively in such fashion. All
cloud storage services used like that are interchangeable.

~~~
thirdsun
Just like OP I'm a paying Dropbox customer that doesn't use the official
client. I mainly use it to backup my 600 Gb and counting music library via Arq
[1]. There's no way I'd store something as critical as my music collection in
the default Dropbox sync folder. Plus, I only need a one way sync that
preferably happens at night. So I have no need for the official client.

I know there are dedicated backup services like Backblaze, however
occasionally I also need to share a large file or two with someone or need to
offer a public download. It's often enough that I don't want to use wetransfer
or similar services. Even more often I need a service that syncs data and
settings of various iOS apps. While iCloud is fine, Dropbox is widely
supported on iOS. I basically need a general purpose web storage and Dropbox
seems to be the only one that handles all these use cases fine.

[1] [https://www.arqbackup.com/](https://www.arqbackup.com/)

------
mtzet
This really happened a couple of months ago, and really sucks. There aren't
that many alternatives to Dropbox if you require both Windows, Mac and Linux
client support. I ended up settling on Nextcloud (ownCloud fork) hosted by
Hetzner[1].

So far it's pretty good. Photo sync works from Phone works perfectly, and the
desktop apps are decent enough. I did get bitten by a recursive folder-sync
bug [2], which is certainly not of Dropbox quality but at least pull-requests
are welcome.

[1]
[https://www.hetzner.com/storage/nextcloud](https://www.hetzner.com/storage/nextcloud)

[2]
[https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues/1000](https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues/1000)

~~~
Uninen
I switched to Nextcloud about a year ago and I've been very happy.

Firstly, I now have as much disk I need, and secondly, the warm fuzzy feeling
you get when you know your files are now in your own control :)

------
needle0
Feeling some deja vu, as it's quite similar to what Evernote did (also equally
feeling like shooting themselves in the foot in regards to user goodwill).
Well, at least I already have a crapton of devices synced and they didn't
retroactively disable it like Evernote did.

------
eugeniub
This started 2 months ago. I deleted Dropbox.

~~~
woutr_be
I had Dropbox installed on all my devices, but wasn't really actively using
it, that was until it kept asking me to upgrade to a paid account, that's when
I moved all my files to iCloud and deleted my Dropbox account.

Since I only use Apple products, I don't really have to worry about cross OS
compatibility.

~~~
damnyou
You may still want to worry about platform lock-in, if only for the option
value of being able to leave when Apple inevitably makes a decision you
disagree with.

~~~
toomuchtodo
No matter what decision Apple makes, it'll likely never be so bad I switch to
Windows, Linux, or Android. Married to the ecosystem for better or worse.

~~~
copperx
I sometimes worry about becoming unemployed and then having my main machine
die on me. I wouldn't be able to pay top dollar for an Apple machine.

Using commodity hardware gives me peace of mind regarding this scenario,
unlikely as it sounds.

~~~
skinnymuch
Yep I’m married to the ecosystem as well, but if my main MacBook from early
2015 breaks in the next few months while not being employed, I’m not sure what
I’d do. I mean I know I’d probably use my family’s older 2011 MacBook until I
get a new MacBook later on. But if that MacBook isn’t available, I might have
to switch.

------
bane
I'm weirdly fine with this. I've noticed over the years that I'm using dropbox
less and less as competitors have sliced up the file-syncing and sharing
problem in different ways. For example, one of the things I used to use DB for
was to make sure documents or other media were available on all my devices.
Now I just host them with an ebook server or plex or whatever. Lots of my
office document needs are covered with Google drive or Office 365.

My work uses OneDrive extensively and it integrates _really_ well across
devices and the web for on-line editing. Dropbox never really had a better
use-case than syncing and missed the boat on using the easy u/l mechanism for
various kinds of sharing/social activities. I'm more or less considering
moving to OneDrive for home use as well even if the sync isn't quite as good
because it works better than DB across almost all other parameters.

Also nobody here's mentioned Amazon Drive which I find interesting.

------
simonebrunozzi
This is what happens when a great company/product decides they want to squeeze
money out of their customers.

I saw this happen with Evernote. It's starting to happen with Dropbox.

I wish there were a company really focused on the long term, and that cared
about customers more than bottom line.

Dropbox / Evernote competitors: please, show up.

~~~
segmondy
It's free. FREE. Free costs money. Give me a break. I use Dropbox & Evernote
free tier. I can't complain about the limits, either I pay up or shut up and
use it or find an alternative.

~~~
goerz
The problem isn't having limits on the free tier. The problem is _changing_
the services for existing accounts (free or otherwise), in this case to
completely cripple free accounts. I wouldn't even complain if they only
applied the 3-device restriction to _new_ free accounts

------
JackPoach
Bitrix24 is another decent Dropbox alternative for group accounts. Available
both on-premise and in cloud -
[https://www.bitrix24.com/features/docs.php](https://www.bitrix24.com/features/docs.php)

------
indigodaddy
What about BitTorrent Sync? Is that still a thing, and didn't do Dropboxy type
things?

~~~
alpaca128
I don't remember details but the last time I tried it the program didn't work
reliably enough for me. Nowadays there's Syncthing which does the same thing
but better.

~~~
danieldk
It is not the same thing. SyncThing's model of having to add every host to
every other host (possibly with introducer nodes) is much more complex. With
Bittorrent/Resilio Sync, you can just give someone else a read-only or read-
write key for a folder, and they become part of the swarm. Also, Resilio Sync
supports encrypted-only nodes, which participate in the swarm by providing
bandwidth, but only see ciphertext. This makes it possible to use e.g. an
untrusted VPS as an always-available node.

Unfortunately, Resilio had to ruin it with complex enterprice-y license
schemes.

------
MAGZine
I just ran into this because I use Dropbox sync with 1Password.

My 1Password standalone license is now limited to three connected devices as a
result. Very disappointing.

Can't say I'll be giving dropbox my business.

~~~
TheChaplain
Uh, you didn't give them your business earlier either, because you were using
the free tier?

~~~
MAGZine
Why would I give them my business now, after being kicked off? If I'm going to
pay for a service, I'd sooner pay for Google Drive.

------
gopher2
I would be curious to learn/hear some of the backstory on how they picked 3,
since where to draw the line with freemium seems like it's hard to get right.

~~~
boulos
If I had to guess: Computer, Tablet, Phone.

------
teekert
So, you set up Nextcloud in snap a [0] on some home computer or server and
then leave it like that... or, if you must, point Dropbox to the the same
folder on said pc/server (remember to use Ext4 people, ugh) and group clients
like that. But at this point, I'd be looking for alternatives.

[0] [https://snapcraft.io/nextcloud](https://snapcraft.io/nextcloud)

------
josteink
All the previous noise about explicitly disabling itself on ZFS (non
ext4-filesystems) on Linux made me kind of disenfranchised with Dropbox.

It’s no longer the universal solution it used to be. That _was_ it’s one
unique selling point its competitors didn’t have. Good job ruining it!

If my next phone is an Android, I’ll probably move everything to syncthing and
call it a day.

------
Cyclone_
Wonder how much of this is related to them being public now. It's still useful
for me with only 3 devices so I wouldn't be ready to start paying them though.

------
cozzyd
"Fortunately" they also dropped support for XFS so I can't even use on my work
computer anymore...

------
BrandoElFollito
I moved to seafile. Excellent alternative covering all dropbox features.

------
valleyjo
Well... I guess they have to try to make money somehow

~~~
sidcool
Don't we all?

~~~
valleyjo
So meta

------
huxflux
So glad I left Dropbox after they got hacked.

------
nextlevelwizard
How many people have more than 3 devices to sync between anyways?

I bet normal use case is to sync between desktop, laptop, and phone.

And I'm sure now some people will comment how they use Dropbox to sync stuff
to their whole extended family for some obscure reason and that is fine. Then
the free version is just not for you.

For me it seems to still work like it used to.

~~~
sidcool
Yours is a fair argument, but you are being downvoted for a contrarian view. I
too have two devices I ideally have to sync between.

Also, why do we expect corporations to dole out free goodies for everyone?
Dropbox has a good product, they should be able to charge for it.

~~~
goerz
I expect them to honor the agreement I had with them when originally signing
up with them, and promoting them to others (earning 20GB of storage through
referrals). If they want to reserve new features for paid accounts, fine, but
don’t cripple existing free accounts to make them effectively useless.

~~~
DandyDev
And where exactly did Dropbox make a legally binding agreement with you that
allows you to sync 20GB to an unlimited number of devices for perpetuity? The
agreement you're referencing doesn't exist.

~~~
sidcool
We are civilized people and don't need to shove contracts in each other's
faces for everything. Somehow we have gone from being too violent to too
litigious. Not bad compared to violence, but can be better.

