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Discussion (68 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
1. You must be 18 to use Dropbox. Previously, you had to be 13 if in the United States, or 16 if higher. Dropbox may use information "Dropbox may use and rely on information from third parties, including age signals from app stores, for the purpose of enforcing this restriction."
2. Your account may be terminated if you don't have a Paid account and haven't accessed for 6 months. Previously, it was 12 months.
3. If you have multiple accounts tied to the same email address, and one is banned, the others may also be banned.
4. "Refunds are only issued if required by law." -> "Refunds are only issued in limited circumstances or if required by law."
5. You automatically agree to the new terms if you continue to have an account. Previously, it was only if you continued to use the service.
6. Some terms covering Teams accounts.
I hope file sync is treated as "access", otherwise this would make me anxious.
I would really love to see courts throw this BS out.
It would also potentially invalidate clauses like the one in GPL license too: "this version or any later version" — how can anyone consent to yet-unknown terms?
In this particular case and going after the summary from big85, there's one case of legal compliance (like age restrictions — it applies in appropriate jurisdictions even if the ToS is not updated) or maybe two (banning per-account vs per-owner), some widening of the terms to the benefit of the customer (like refunds being permitted in "special circumstances" on top of "required by law, with only "reductionist" change being about lowering service window for unused free accounts (in some jurisdictions, even this could be about respecting data privacy laws — companies are obligated to remove any data which is not used after a certain time, though I think this is 12 months even under GDPR).
As such, I believe this would not be a good case where you can bring enough light how this type of clause is harming one side to the contract.
https://www.diffchecker.com/QD8AKShC/
https://github.com/technikhil314/offline-diff-viewer
- some stuff about Teams that's mostly only relevant if you're using your work email for a personal account
- minimium age 13 -> 18; add "Dropbox may use and rely on information from third parties, including age signals from app stores, for the purpose of enforcing this restriction."
- free accounts may be terminated after 6 months of no use (previously 12 months)
- removed "If you reside in the EU, the European Commission provides for an online dispute resolution platform, which you can access here: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr." from the dispute resolution process.
> The European Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Platform is discontinued as of 20 July 2025
It won't be surprising if the requirement comes from some alphabet agency.
Also, just talked two friends who work for mid-size companies and last week both of their CEOs told them to just point Ai to their Jira tickets to finish all their tasks. Anyone else hearing their CEOs instruct the same thing?
I once contacted their customer support about this and their answer was "Oh really? Can you send some examples?" So I sent them screenshots of all the upselling banners, popups, etc. that they showed and I never heard back from them.
It also didn't make sense at all. Why, if I'm using Dropbox for family use, would I upgrade to a business plan?
I use a bunch of additional services they offer. They work well, make me spend less money and save my time (e.g.: send, transcription, advanced sharing controls).
Having been a paid user for the last decade my current experience is just getting error messages on my phone every week that something failed to sync, and that I have to re-enter the app every ~month to disable/enable syncing for my offline files, otherwise it doesn't work. I can't remember any time I've been pleasantly surprised by any change to the service.
At first I was selective in what folders I synced but after a few months I decided to just sync my entire workspace folder with everything in it.
Incredibly convenient, everything is automatically synced between my desktop and laptop.
If you go this route look into filters, it's not a very advertised feature but works great for excluding build output, venvs and other stuff.
Also bypasses the free Dropbox account's limitations on 3 devices.
haven't used it yet. i either back up my data with restic or sync it to other devices with syncthing, but those are tiny files (keepassxc dbs)
It's 2026 and they're handling IT like pariahs of the stone age.
Even they grey beards of the 70s would have worked that out easily.
Good services make change explicit.
Dropbox seems to have degraded into incompetence. Unable to provide good services.
Alas no linux support, not even an api to allow the use of some terminal command to get round GUI fragmentation. Searching for 'sync online storage with linux' leads to a recent redit thread and a Mint Linux forum thread.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
Mission SF Soccer remembers.
- You must access Dropbox every 6 months (from 12) if you have a free to ensure they don't delete your account