Dropbox Suspends My Public Links for Generating Excessive Traffic
June 24, 2012 
10 Comments
Well, it looks like I won’t be recommending Dropbox on this website anymore, at least not for public file sharing. Less than 2 full days after starting to use Public Links for two measly files, Dropbox has temporarily suspended my use of public links for three days for “generating excessive traffic”.
For those of you wondering what the heck Dropbox is, it is a file syncing and supposedly “sharing” service for computers, tablets, and phones. You can upload files from your computer and then access them from another device anywhere you have an internet connection, and vice versa. Plus you can get links to share your uploaded files with other people so they can download them too.
But it turns out the sharing part is limited. If you want to share with a large number of people Dropbox will boot you to the curb.
A couple of days ago people were leaving comments on this website about some file downloads not working for the Nook Touch and Nook Tablet. So I decided to just link to my Dropbox folder so I wouldn’t have to worry about the links going dead and having to update yet again.
That didn’t last long.
It turns out Dropbox will suspend the use of public links if a link generates more than 20GB per day of downloads for free users and 200GB for paid users. At least that’s what it says on this Dropbox help page because the email I received from them explained nothing.
But I find that cap limit hard to believe. One file I’m using is only 2.5MB. That would take 8,000 downloads in one single day to reach 20GB. Now the other file is pretty large at 112MB. But even still that file would have to be downloaded 179 times in a 24 hour span to hit 20GB.
I think it is unlikely that that many people are downloading the file given how many people are visiting the page. But I have no way of knowing because Dropbox doesn’t give users access to that kind of information.
Regardless, it illustrates the point that Dropbox is a file syncing service and not a file sharing service, despite what their marketing department would lead us to believe.
Imagine if you wanted to upload and share videos you took while on vacation, or of your kids playing sports. Video files are large and often exceed 1GB. Just make sure you don’t share them with very many people in one day, especially on Twitter or Facebook, or Dropbox will shut the links down and leave you hanging…
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You could use Amazon S3/Cloudfront to distribute the files, at a cost of a few pennies a month probably. Hell, if you want, send me the files and I’ll put them on my S3 account (biz expense).
Thanks, but I already went ahead and uploaded the large file to mediafire and it should be good for now. Since this morning it’s had a whopping 15 downloads. Dropbox is full of crap if they are saying it exceeded 20GB in one day.
Yeah this sounds like BS to me. Someone probably checked you out and found this blog, then assumed you would be a free traffic risk. They want you to pay up.
I’ve just hit this exact problem with Dropbox. Only created an account to store some files associated with a YouTube video I did explaining how to root an Android phone and put custom firmware on it – all legal. The file is just over 200mb so was too large for SkyDrive (my normal choice), so tried Dropbox. To be honest, was totally happy until I received this email. You’d think a big company like Dropbox would give us small guys a break?! After all (as you said) thats how their marketing department is advertising them as a file share… so you’d think they would be able to handle a little traffic?! Maybe they’re panicing because of cases like MegaUpload, etc… but they should check file contents before suspending an account as this is totally unquantified and distruptive.
I use it to store the images of my website sometimes. I hope I don’t get suspended as well.
I’ve been suspended 5 times now, and there’s NO WAY I’m coming close reaching the 200GB/day limit of my “Pro” account.
I emailed tech support who told me “If your links get banned again, I would suggest using a different service”.
…I want iDisk back.
Wow, what a friendly response that was. Stuff like that makes me glad I stopped recommending them.
Dropbox is the greatest service in the world.. I suddenly got 100GB free storage from dropbox, and i dont know why.. I dont have to carry my usb drive all the time anymore..
It would be, if they didn’t suspend links at the drop of a hat.
For syncing – they are still fine, for filesharing – Dropbox is no longer fit for purpose
I shared an 18mb time lapse amateurish video of a sunrise during my holiday with 10 others and got suspended. My friends must have each downloaded it 10,000 times for my suspension to be consistent with their stated terms of use. Sounds like it’s time for a class action on this.