Advantages and Disadvantages of DropBox (You will ever need)

Cloud storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox are popular, it is necessary for us to know the advantages and disadvantages.

I am using DropBox for the last two years, so based on my experience, I will share the advantages and disadvantages of DropBox.

DropBox is a storage place where we can store our files, documents, private files, images, videos, etc. in one secure place.

It allows us to store and retrieve our files at any time from any device.

According to the official website, more than 700 million users are using dropbox to store, share and use files.

Here is the list of advantages and disadvantages of Dropbox.

Table of Contents

Advantages of DropBox

Now, we are going to see the important advantages of DropBox, which are listed below.

Share any file or folder easily
Store and organize the folder in the DropBox
Sync your devices
Secure Data in the DropBox
Connect remote teams
A Backup solution in the DropBox
E-signature
Productivity in the DropBox

1. Share Any File or Folder Easily in DropBox

File sharing or Folder sharing with DropBox is easy and simple. We can send anything from images, videos, files, folders, and large files, folders with friends, colleagues families, etc.

Most of the time our friends or colleagues don’t have a DropBox account. Even then we can send them links from mobile, tablet, or laptop so that they can view them.

We will get notified if our friends or family make any changes to the shared file like renaming, editing, or deleting the file.

DropBox is a great place to add files or folders to one common location. It’s easy for the team in the organization, college students, and school students as well to access the files.

You can also use the below options such as

Creating a group – Like WhatsApp, you can also create a group in DropBox to share your event with your families.
Password protection to the files – There is a possibility of risk for the data you shared if sent with an attachment. We can add password protection to a shared link by setting a link expiration date.
Folder permission to recipients – We can secure our folder by choosing editing or view-only options for the recipients in the DropBox.
Specific folder permissions – Rather than giving access to the entire folder user can give access to the specific folder to view.

2. Store and Organize Folders in DropBox

Files or folders can be stored in DropBox such as images, videos, large files, zip files, and presentations by uploading directly to a Dropbox account. All your files are securely saved in the cloud storage and it is easily accessible.

File or folder in DropBox is organized by creating a group with a subgroup. For example, if we want to keep a separate folder for a project we can create one new folder name as project in the main folder, and we can create more folders by adding sub-topics related to the project.

We can give the naming conventions for files or folders by keeping alphabetical order, date of birth orders, event basis, etc.

When your files or folders are organized, it is easy to pick and share instead of searching.

Backup photos automatically – DropBox automatically backed up photos or videos by using camera features.

3. Sync Your Devices

Cloud Sync feature is available on multiple platforms like Windows and Mac. Also, it is available on all smart devices like Android and iOS, iPhone, and iPad.

File changes like editing, and renaming, have been done on mobile, it will automatically update the same file on all other devices like pc, desktops, etc.

File synchronization is a technique of keeping files in different locations up to date.

Note: Changes made to your offline files won’t “sync”. Once you are back online, Dropbox will sync the changes made in the offline files.

Other features of Sync are

Offline access on all your devices – You can access the files offline on your android, iPhone, or iPad. Right-click the file or folder and select make available offline. When there is no internet connection, we can obtain the particular file offline.
Saving photos in the DropBox – Bought a new phone? Then think how difficult it is to transfer the files to a new device manually. With DropBox photo transfer between devices is easy and simple by saving in the cloud.

4. Secure Data in DropBox

Data security, speed, and efficiency are what all companies are looking for. 500,000 Teams representing over half the fortune 500 use DropBox as a safe, secure flexible workspace.

We can send or receive any file from anyone quicky and easily with the help of Dropbox. Data security means preventing the data from unauthorized person and hackers.

Moreover, DropBox plus in the premium plan now includes a useful password manager. In this, you can add a new PIN-protected file that gives extra security to important data. Also, we can recover anything in DropBox account for up to 30 days.

Some of the International Standards Organization(ISO) certificates for data security are,

ISO 27001– Information security management
ISO 27017 – Cloud Security
ISO 27018 – Cloud privacy and data protection
ISO 27701 – Privacy Information Management
Data privacy – Connect a personal and work DropBox to maintain a clear detachment of business and personal data. Reset the password for the team on which team members receive a two-step verification is enabled.
Transparency in Government data – DropBox is the 1st company to publish a transparency report as to how many government data requests are received. And it publishes this information twice a year.

5. Connect Remote Teams

DropBox is a single space for your team’s content collaboration needs. Teams can consolidate their work in one place and spend less time managing content and more collaborating.

Access all the files like PDFs, Google docs, and JPEGs. Document editing allows us to share all types of content with project mates in a single document.

In addition to this, we can add emojis, and templates, mention team member names, and even youtube links.

Feedback in Dropbox has made things easier. We can interact, share, test, and edit along with team members in a single entity.

We can leave comments for the particular documents and also tag them so that it will acknowledge them for the feedback.

Some more advantages of remote teams are:

Annotations – Allows you to comment on images such as excel, photoshop even though the user doesn’t have the software. It can be used for both desktop and mobile devices.
Task Management – Project managers and Members can check their deadlines to complete the task. Also, the pop-up dialog box sends an automatic alarm notification if the deadlines are near. It is easy for the team head to check every person’s update and performance in the track instead of several follow-ups and meetings.
Screen Recorder – All our screen recordings get automatically saved in our DropBox account. We can see whoever viewed the videos can set permissions to control access.

6. Backup Plans in Dropbox

BACKUP	PLUS	PROFESSIONAL
$5.99/month – Monthly	$11.99/month – Monthly	$19.99/month – Monthly
$4.99/month – Year plan	$9.99/month – Year plan	$16.58/month – Year plan
1 User	1 User	1 User
Unlimited backup storage for one computer and one drive (30-day recovery)	2000GB of secure storage (30-day recovery)	3000 GB of secure storage (180-day recovery)
Automatically Backup files and quickly recover with DropBox backup	Automatically Backup files and quickly recover with DropBox backup	Automatically Backup files and quickly recover with DropBox backup
Best-in-class sync technology	Best-in-class sync technology	Best-in-class sync technology
connect 3 devices	Unlimited Device Access	Unlimited Device Access
Live chat support	Live chat support	Live chat support and send files up to 100GB
Send files up to 100 MB	Send files up to 2 GB	Remote device wipe
	Remote device wipe	Document watermarking and branded sharing

7. E-Sign a Document

Another advantage of DropBox is electronic signatures. Just choose a document and add a signature field. You can sign in using a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.

Another way to sign a PDF document is just to type your name and take a photo of the signature so that your signature is legally enforceable.

8. Productivity in the DropBox

DOC scanner – DOC is capturing paper documents and converts them into digital images. By using the scanning feature, we can easily access all the files with DropBox.
OCR – When the user has dozens of scanned PDFs and other images in the cloud, it becomes difficult to search them. So, with the help of optical character recognition (OCR), converting images or text into a machine-readable format becomes easy. We can search the PDFs by keyword or any specific term. Businesses can also benefit from OCR for example, if a doctor wants to know about patient history, he can search by simple keywords like patient name or patient id, etc., to find the file.
Electronic signature request – Upload a document, drag and drop your fields and send the signature request to the recipient you want. It will take a few minutes, but 80% of the contracts like construction deals, and business deals are signed faster with this option.

Disadvantages of DropBox

Every coin has two sides, the major drawback or disadvantage of dropbox, which I have experienced is shared below.

Lack of customer support
Information is deleted if an account is inactive
Issues with file saving
Less storage for free users
Expensive compared to other cloud storage

1. Lack of Customer Support

In DropBox, the only way to reach out to customer support is by sending an email.

If you want support on an urgent basis there might be a chance of not getting a reply from them immediately, so it makes the user feel inconvenienced when using DropBox.

2. Information Will be Deleted if an Account is Inactive

DropBox team has the right to delete an account if it’s not used for 12 months. Even though you have stored some documents, files, or folders in the DropBox.

3. Issues with File Saving

In certain cases, when we share a file with two different DropBox users. Both users edit the same file and whoever saves the file first, DropBox considers that to be the main file. The person who saves it second, their data gets lost.

4. Less Storage Space for Free Users

We may require more space for the basic plan, therefore DropBox may not work out for us. Compared to OneDrive unpaid plan that comes with 5GB while Google Drive offers 15GB for free, Dropbox definitely will not be a choice for the users as it is providing 2GB of free space.

5. Expensive Compared to Other Cloud Storage

DropBox personal plus – 2TB – $11.99/month or $119.88/year (one-time payment).
Google Drive – 2TB – $9.99/month.
Apple iCloud – 2TB – $9.99/month.
OneDrive – 1TB – $6.99/month and allows Microsoft suites such as Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook, access.

Compared to other cloud storage devices, DropBox does not offer the best plans for users.

Conclusion

All the technology and programs will not satisfy everyone and DropBox also comes with its own pros and cons. It also has strong competitors like Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud.

DropBox is also considered one of the best file-sharing apps to date and it is recommended to Business users as well. Companies may make suitable changes over a period of time to overcome some disadvantages in the future.