A few days ago, I was asked to upload a bunch of client testimonial videos to Vimeo. The videos are about 2+ GB in size total, and they all sit on DropBox shared with me by one of our clients. And me being on the other side of the planet with a limited internet data allocation and unreliable internet, I can’t afford to waste time and manually download them all locally and upload them to Vimeo. Sure it will take me forever to do just that.

A quick look on Vimeo’s dashboard doesn’t offer much help. There’s no “import DropBox to Vimeo” or equivalent that could help me move those videos from DropBox to Vimeo with ease. All I got is an UPLOAD” button that prompts you to locate your videos locally hosted on your computer.

5 Ways To Free Up, Increase Your DropBox Disk Space

After a few tinkering, I realized that there’s indeed a way to send and import videos from DropBox to Vimeo. And it’s easy to miss it because it’s hidden somewhere.

So, how do you import or upload videos from DropBox to Vimeo and save time?

The trick is easy: just head directly to https://vimeo.com/upload. On the right, click on the DropBox icon. It will bring in a DropBox dialog where you can choose the videos to import. And your videos will be automatically imported in seconds to Vimeo.

You can also import, upload videos from Google Drive to Vimeo. Just click on the Google Drive icon right beside the DropBox button.

How To: Import, Upload Videos from DropBox to Vimeo in Seconds

If you’ve been using DropBox since its inception back in 2008, chances are your FREE DropBox account now is either full or about to run out of space. That’s especially true if you’ve been using the platform as your go-to repository to store your personal and work-related files. That’s a massive 12 years of backup files to date.

While there are a handful of newcomers offering the same DropBox-like functionality + FREE disk space, nothing beats the niftiness and simplicity of DropBox. Not to mention the fact that DropBox has been used by well-known digital companies so we can be sure our data is well-protected.

DropBox’s Basic Plan gives you 2GB of disk space. Sure it’s not enough. And if you’re a freelancer who isn’t ready yet to upgrade, then, read along as I’ll show you how you can get as much as 20GB of disk space from DropBox at no additional cost.

(Note: 2TB starts at $9.99/month, if things aren’t tight please consider upgrading to paid plans)

Here are 5 legal ways to increase your DropBox disk space for FREE

  1. Delete unused files

    Digital assets such as images, PSD, XD, and other Adobe files can easily eat up our DropBox disk space. Visit each and every single folder and see if you can safely remove those files. If it’s already a one-year-old project or so, better delete them.

    Removing those unused files and folders can quickly regain the extra DropBox disk space you need.

  2. ZIP/compress folders

    If you have a large folder on your DropBox you want to keep but don’t constantly use, try archiving it and zip it. You can save as much as half of its size. You can even further reduce it by using the most optimized compression method or use GZIP format to shrink its size.

    How To Unzip Archived Files in DropBox without Downloading them Offline

    Of course, you don’t want to archive those folders you’ll likely access in the next few months. Just archive those 1-2 years old project folders that you don’t have reasons to access again.

  3. Take Advantage of DropBox Referral System

    DropBox has an existing referral system that rewards you with 500MB bonus space for each successful referral installs. Just go to https://www.dropbox.com/referrals page to get your unique link and you can start inviting friends to signup.

    Get A List of All Google Drive Files & Folders in Google Sheet

    A lot of people have been gaming this system and was able to snatch as much as 16GB of bonus disk space. The popular method includes using virtual machines and doing fake installations using their own referral link. DropBox requires each referred account to install its Windows or Mac app before rewarding the extra 500MB bonus disk space.

  4. Move your backup files to other cloud services

    Again, DropBox has attracted tens of competitors trying to get a slice of the pie. Popular cloud storage platforms include Google Drive, OneDrive, Otixo, Mover.io, ZeroPC, etc. What these guys have in common is that they have free plans that give you as much as 30GB of FREE cloud storage space.

    You now have multiple options to choose from to unload some of your files and free up your DropBox disk space. You can go classic by downloading your DropBox files and upload them to your cloud storage of choice or you can use cloud storage management platforms such as Otixo to move files between multiple cloud storage providers. Doing so guarantees to free up your DropBox disk space.

  5. Upgrade your DropBox plan

    If you want to skip the headaches of increasing your DropBox disk space, then, this would be your last option. DropBox Plus tier sets you back $9.99 a month which gives you 2 TB storage space. That should already be enough storage space for your digital life.

Wrapping it up

Our work-related stuff can easily eat up our DropBox 2 GB storage space. While there are other cloud storage platforms we can check out, it’s the security & simplicity of DropBox that makes it hard to depart. And if you’re unprepared to upgrade to a much higher storage plan, you can try the above suggestions to free up and increase your DropBox storage space.

5 Ways To Free Up, Increase Your DropBox Disk Space

Few days ago, I was confronted with this situation where I needed to get a specific file within a zip file shared to me on DropBox. The trouble is, the archive file is over 2GB in size and I am on a limited internet data connection and I can’t afford to waste time downloading the entire 2GB file just to get a specific file for my web project.

Such dilemma would’ve been not a problem if, and only if, DropBox has a built-in file management system where you can zip or unzip files in DropBox website. However, as you might already know, DropBox web app is still deprived of such functionality. And there are no DropBox App Extensions that can do basic archive file management.

So normally your only way out is to download the entire ZIP file on your local drive and do the actual unzipping on your machine, which sounds very much unacceptably antiquated.

Because 2GB of data would cost me $5 in my country to download (and $5 is not cheap), I had to find a way how to unzip DropBox files without downloading them first. Thankfully, I found a way out, albeit not the most straight-forward. And this article, I’m going to show you how.

What you need

  • DropBox account
  • Google Drive account
  • Otixo account (or other free cloud file management apps)

Cutting off the crap, this method works this way: using Otixo service, we remotely copy those zip files from DropBox to Google Drive. And once those zip files are transferred to Google Drive, you can unzip them straight from Google Drive website.

How to unzip Dropbox files without downloading them first offline

For the purpose of this tutorial, I'm going to use a demo file globe-at-home.zip which sits right inside my DropBox account

  1. You’ll have to signup or login first to Otixo and connect your DropBox and Google Drive cloud accounts. Otixo has a decent file management functionality where you can connect multiple cloud drives into a single interface so you can quickly manage your files from multiple sources. We wrote about it before, so go check it out.
  2. Once you’ve added both your DropBox and Google Drive accounts, copy your DropBox ZIP file to your Google Drive. The transfer should take in seconds.

  3. As soon as you hit the Copy button, the ZIP file should arrive on your Google Drive account.

  4. Now, you're ready to unzip the archive inside Google Drive. To do that, you'll have to add ZIP Extractor as add-on to your Google Drive. See our guide here.

    Once ZIP Extractor is added, you can open your archive file with ZIP Extractor, as seen below:

  5. And finally, selectively extract the contents within that ZIP file.

You're done!

Best & FREE Alternatives To Otixo To Manage Multiple Cloud Storage Accounts

ZIP Extractor will then automatically create a new folder containing all the extracted files within that folder where the original ZIP file is located.

Final Verdict

Being able to unzip files in DropBox isn't natively supported yet on DropBox web app. However, with a little bit of creativity, we can achieve the same feat by moving that ZIP file from DropBox to Google Drive and do the extraction in the latter. Well, thanks to Otixo.

How To Unzip Archived Files in DropBox without Downloading them Offline