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PhiladelphiaX

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
98
0
I have three basic questions regarding DropBox and similar programs:

1.) Is it possible to create multiple DropBox accounts to store various media?

2.) Can you remove and replace things in your DropBox account repeatedly?

3.) Can you have a DropBox account for some of your media while simealoutaenously storing other media on other free cloud programs (Bitcasa, box.com, Cloud Me, Google Drive, etc.)?
 

brand

macrumors 601
Oct 3, 2006
4,390
456
127.0.0.1
Why not pay for the additional the storage that you are actually using instead of being dishonest and creating multiple accounts with the same online storage provider? This is probably against the terms of use and would be cause for account cancelation.

The alternative would be to do as your third question suggests and to use multiple provider's free offerings. The only problem with that is having to manage several different services.
 

AlecEdworthy

macrumors 6502
May 1, 2007
415
129
Leicestershire, UK
I have three basic questions regarding DropBox and similar programs:

1.) Is it possible to create multiple DropBox accounts to store various media?

2.) Can you remove and replace things in your DropBox account repeatedly?

3.) Can you have a DropBox account for some of your media while simealoutaenously storing other media on other free cloud programs (Bitcasa, box.com, Cloud Me, Google Drive, etc.)?
1. Yes, you will need one e-mail address per account. I would recommend signing up for one and then using that to send "refer a friend" links to the other accounts as each referral you make gets you (and the account which signs up using the reference) an extra 250MB of space.

2. Yes, you can add and remove files as much as you want. Deleted files can be recovered online for a short while.

3. Yes, I have accounts with Dropbox, SpiderOak, Google Drive and iCloud and store different data in each.

Alec
 

davideotape

macrumors 6502a
Nov 16, 2012
530
144
Can you link multiple drop box accounts to one device though? My impression was a device can only be linked to one account but many devices can be linked to the same account
 

MattInOz

macrumors 68030
Jan 19, 2006
2,760
0
Sydney
The client app can only link to one account. You can share folders but the space used by the shared folder counts to both accounts (from memory). So the practical value of two accounts is limited unless you have a clear divide between accounts. Like Work/Home.
 

AlecEdworthy

macrumors 6502
May 1, 2007
415
129
Leicestershire, UK
Can you link multiple drop box accounts to one device though? My impression was a device can only be linked to one account but many devices can be linked to the same account
On an iOS device, no, you would have to log into and out of each account one at a time. On a Mac or Windows you can log into multiple accounts simultaneously using workarounds documented online.

Alec
 

riverfreak

macrumors 68000
Jan 10, 2005
1,828
2,288
Thonglor, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon
1. Yes, you will need one e-mail address per account. I would recommend signing up for one and then using that to send "refer a friend" links to the other accounts as each referral you make gets you (and the account which signs up using the reference) an extra 250MB of space.

...

Alec

Hmm. That's not very honest now is it? What a pain it must be to constantly switch between accounts.

Just pony up the cash for additional storage and create folders for different types of content. Dropbox is a great service and very deserving of your money.
 

kevroc

macrumors 6502
Oct 15, 2011
467
126
The client app can only link to one account. You can share folders but the space used by the shared folder counts to both accounts (from memory). So the practical value of two accounts is limited unless you have a clear divide between accounts. Like Work/Home.

You could use an app like readdle or goodreader which both have dropbox file support built-in. I don't know if you can have multiple dropbox accounts defined within their app but it seems so based on their layout.
 

gishygoo

macrumors newbie
Dec 15, 2012
1
0
I wanted to know the answer to this same question, but not because I want to add extra storage for myself. I am a teacher, and would love to have students set up a Dropbox account and share a folder with me as their teacher so they can subit work through Dropbox. However, I only have a classroom set of iPads, so different classes would need to share. I don't want students to have access to the accounts of their peers, but need to know if they can log in and out to switch between accounts. Trying to work out the logistics here with shared technology.
 

willpower101

macrumors regular
Jul 12, 2009
138
0
Jesus guys. Don't judge.

Storage is cheap and free accounts are a drop in the ocean. Dropbox even has a faq that says if you want to use multiple separate dropbox accounts, the official way is to run multiple user accounts on one computer. They don't care if you have multiple free accounts. Plus there are a hundred different legitimate reasons for this. Organizing dropboxes by file type could be a perfectly legitimate reason for a student developer.

As for ios, yeah jailbreak and use ifile. It's not elegant though.
 

Abazigal

Contributor
Jul 18, 2011
19,457
21,847
Singapore
I wanted to know the answer to this same question, but not because I want to add extra storage for myself. I am a teacher, and would love to have students set up a Dropbox account and share a folder with me as their teacher so they can subit work through Dropbox. However, I only have a classroom set of iPads, so different classes would need to share. I don't want students to have access to the accounts of their peers, but need to know if they can log in and out to switch between accounts. Trying to work out the logistics here with shared technology.

Not possible to my knowledge. The next best thing would be to have them use the web version and log out after every use. I guess I am "blessed" with pretty obedient pupils who haven't gotten around to snooping around other folders or messing around with them.

I am a teacher doing the same thing with my pupils. What I did was to create a Dropbox account for each class, then link them to my main Dropbox account as shared folders. This way, I can access whatever they park inside without having to log in or out.

Great way to quickly collect and keep track of assignments without having to deal with boxes of thumb drives or emails.
 

djharris

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2009
90
0
Virginia, USA
It's pretty easy on Mac, on iOS... Not so much.

http://lifehacker.com/5971204/run-multiple-dropbox-accounts-on-one-computer

To the teacher having students drop off work, I suppose you can create an academic account for yourself, a folder for each class, and subfolders for each student. Then, share the students personal folder with the student (so they can't access each others work, but can send finished versions of assignments to you). Then, you could have a "public" folder for the class where you could drop files for everyone, or even allow write access so students can share items with their classmates if desired. Maybe you can have a subfolder for "incoming" that students can write to but allow read only on the rest. (Not sure if Dropbox can do that level of granularity, though)
 

0970373

Suspended
Mar 15, 2008
2,727
1,412
Hmm. That's not very honest now is it? What a pain it must be to constantly switch between accounts.

Just pony up the cash for additional storage and create folders for different types of content. Dropbox is a great service and very deserving of your money.

I really like dropbox but their pricing tiers need a revamp. There needs to be something in between 2GB free and 100GB for $99. SugarSync has better pricing tiers and has some slightly more advanced features. That said, if DB had 50GB for $50, I'd be all over it. I don't understand why they don't revisit this.

I have amassed 8.5GB of free space from dropbox by referring friends & using the photo upload beta, etc + a paid 30GB SugarSync account in a combination that works pretty well for my needs.
 

iThinkergoiMac

macrumors 68030
Jan 20, 2010
2,664
4
Terra
1.) Is it possible to create multiple DropBox accounts to store various media?

Yes, you need a different email per account.

2.) Can you remove and replace things in your DropBox account repeatedly?

This is the whole point of these accounts. It's online storage; it wouldn't be very useful if you could change what you had in there as often as you wished.

3.) Can you have a DropBox account for some of your media while simealoutaenously storing other media on other free cloud programs (Bitcasa, box.com, Cloud Me, Google Drive, etc.)?

Of course. How would those other programs know what you're storing in any of the other ones, and what motivation would they have to keep you from storing the same files on theirs? :)

Everyone is correct that you can't have multiple accounts in the default Dropbox app, but you CAN with AirFile. It even lets you sync GoogleDrive as well, and I believe they are working on more services. It's quite convenient, I generally prefer it over the default Dropbox app.
 

Franglais

macrumors newbie
May 16, 2013
1
0
Georgia, USA
To the teacher whose students share iPads ... Just have the students use Safari to log in and out of the web based DropBox, rather than using the iPad app. Would this not be a work around?
 

dudleylovesyou

macrumors newbie
Jul 30, 2013
1
0
Why not pay for the additional the storage that you are actually using instead of being dishonest and creating multiple accounts with the same online storage provider? This is probably against the terms of use and would be cause for account cancelation.

The alternative would be to do as your third question suggests and to use multiple provider's free offerings. The only problem with that is having to manage several different services.

That wasn't very nice, now was it? Hey dude, I want to know the answer to this question because my son who doesn't live with me has a drop box account and from time to time I would like to just drop some files in there. It would be really convenient if I could just select his folder and drag and drop.
 

brand

macrumors 601
Oct 3, 2006
4,390
456
127.0.0.1
That wasn't very nice, now was it? Hey dude, I want to know the answer to this question because my son who doesn't live with me has a drop box account and from time to time I would like to just drop some files in there. It would be really convenient if I could just select his folder and drag and drop.

Actually nothing about it was not nice. If was honest and to the point. If it bothers you my guess is that you are in the wrong.
 

madeirabhoy

macrumors 68000
Oct 26, 2012
1,594
540
i find dropbox is by far the best service in terms of all the niceties, but the tightest in terms of free space.

however i would never consider paying for space as there are so many different companies offering far more generous space for free.

the best other service ive found with a lot of space is box.com, they dont advertise it but there is a referral link (google it) that gives you 50 gigs free.

i got dropbox up to 18.5 gigs due to referrrals and the extra bonuses they gave in the past for using their photouploader, the scavenger hunt thingie, etc....


so i use dropbox for my photo collection, and box.com for everything else.



one thing i found useful also, is that documents to go allows you to link it to pretty much every type of account, and therefore you can use it to get files, but only file types that it recognises. so great for getting pics, pdfs, etc but doesnt do ebooks. i did email them suggesting they improve this, as it would make docs to go an even better buy, as you dont then need the individual apps but they dont want.

----------

1. Yes, you will need one e-mail address per account. I would recommend signing up for one and then using that to send "refer a friend" links to the other accounts as each referral you make gets you (and the account which signs up using the reference) an extra 250MB of space.

2. Yes, you can add and remove files as much as you want. Deleted files can be recovered online for a short while.

3. Yes, I have accounts with Dropbox, SpiderOak, Google Drive and iCloud and store different data in each.

Alec

small point on 1. to get the extra referral space, it not only needs to be a different email but also the computer you first install it on needs to be different. so if on your home mac, you create an account, then if you create another account on it, the referral wont work, but you could create an account, install on your work computer, delete it, and then you could use it on your home account and still get the extra space.

also, if for example you have a mac and use windows both through parallels and bootcamp, you can install it on the windows partition and it counts as a different computer. if you can be bothered you can also delete and recreate parallels partitions and all will work.
 

libertysat

macrumors regular
Nov 10, 2010
247
124
I have 2 accounts

One for my personal stuff, just a few hundred megs
For stuff that is extra important to me

Another for my business stuff, also a couple hundred megs
Mainly my QuickBooks backups

I like to keep things separate and tidy

I use a Time Capsule
I use iCloud
And 4x/year I do an external USB drive backup of entire hd

I am one of those people who believe you can't have too many backups
My experience in the 90's taught me that - cost me large $$
 

Ram.b

macrumors newbie
Sep 17, 2013
1
0
Access Multiple Dropbox Accounts on One App.

CloudFuze makes syncing between multiple Dropbox accounts easy and efficient. CloudFuze’s desktop application allows users to add and access multiple Dropbox accounts at once, from one computer. Plus, CloudFuze has both desktop and Android applications, providing you with convenient access to all of your cloud storage files from your PC, smart phone, or tablet. With just one simple log in to the CloudFuze platform, all of your Dropbox cloud files are available to view, edit, and organize from one place!

http://www.cloudfuze.com/multiple-dropbox-accounts-from-one-computer/
 
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