Leave a Dropbox team

Updated Jun 10, 2024

This article describes a process available to customers on Dropbox Standard, Advanced, Business, Business Plus, and Enterprise.

If you’re a member of a Dropbox team account, your admin can help you remove your account. If you’re an admin, learn how to remove an account from a Dropbox team.

How to leave a Dropbox team account

Your admin can remove your account from your Dropbox team when you leave your organization. There are several ways your account can be removed from your team. Your account can be:

Suspended from the team
Deleted from the team
Converted to a personal account

You can’t leave an active Dropbox team without the help of an admin. Contact your admin to help choose the best option for your work account.

Note: If you’re a member of a team in locked state, you can leave your team without the help of an admin.

FAQs about leaving a team account

When your account is suspended, you lose access to it immediately. Syncing stops and you can’t access your account on dropbox.com. Your admin can choose to delete your work files from any devices you have linked. None of your files are deleted from your Dropbox account and your admin can unsuspend your account at any time.

If you connected a personal and work account, you can still access your personal account on all linked devices and dropbox.com.

How can I reactivate my team member account?

Talk to your admin about reactivating your account. If you’re an admin, learn how to reactivate a suspended user’s account.

Can I create a new Dropbox account while I'm suspended?

You can create a new Dropbox account with a different email address. However, you can't use the same email address as your team account.

When your account is deleted, you lose access immediately. Files stop syncing across your devices and you can’t access your account on dropbox.com. Your admin can transfer your work files to another team member and can delete your work Dropbox folder from any linked devices.

You won’t be able to create another Dropbox account with the same email address until after 30 days.

What files can be transferred?

Your admin can transfer files from your team member account to another team member when your account is deleted.

What is transferred?

All existing folders and files
All deleted files
Ownership of shared folders you owned
Membership to shared folders owned by other members of your Dropbox team
Ownership of Paper docs you created
A copy of the “Apps” folder containing third-party application data

What isn’t transferred?

Shared links you created (links no longer work)
- Note: If your account has been suspended rather than deleted, shared links continue to work.
Older versions of files
Membership to shared folders owned by people outside of your Dropbox team. Only copies of these folders are transferred.
Access to Paper docs you didn't own
Datastores (a specific type of data that developers of some third-party apps use to store their app data)

What happens to the files on my linked devices?

When a Dropbox admin deletes your work account from the team, they have the option of deleting your work Dropbox folder from all linked devices.

What happens to my connected personal Dropbox account?

If you connected your work and personal accounts, an admin can't delete or suspend your personal account.

Can I reactivate my work account if I was deleted from a Dropbox team?

If your account was deleted in the last seven days, contact your admin to request that they recover your account. If you’re an admin, learn how to reactivate a suspended or deleted member’s account.

If it’s been more than seven days, Dropbox Support can recover the account in limited circumstances. However, for security purposes, we need the permission of the admin of your previous Dropbox team before we can recover your account. Contact Dropbox Support for help with the following information:

Confirmation that you want to recover an account that was deleted from a Dropbox team.
The name of your previous Dropbox team.
The email address of your previous team admin.

We can then attempt to start the account reactivation process.

When your account is removed from a team, your account becomes a Dropbox Basic account. You keep all private files and folders, and any shared folders you own.

Note: Dropbox Replay content isn’t transferred.

What do I keep?

All private files or folders
Shared folders you own
Shared folders owned by people not on the team
Shared folders owned by the team that you were invited to before joining the team
Paper docs
Access to files in shared folders owned by team members you were invited to before joining the team or that don’t have team-only permissions

What do I lose access to?

Team folders
Files in shared folders owned by other team members you were invited to after joining the team or that have team-only permissions
The team’s shared space quota
Dropbox team-only features

Note: If you connected a personal and work account, your accounts are disconnected.

How to leave a team account if your team is in locked state

If you’re a member of a team in locked state, you can leave the team and convert your member account into a free Dropbox Basic account. Your personal folder will move to this new account but you’ll lose access to most team content. To learn more about what you’ll lose access to after converting to a Basic account, see the Accounts converted to a personal account tab in the section above.

Log in to dropbox.com.
Navigate to https://www.dropbox.com/team/decide.
- Note: The link above is only accessible if your team is currently in locked state.
Click Leave the [Team name] team.
Check the box next to I understand I’ll need to be invited by the team admin if I want to join the team again.
Click Leave team and log out.
You can log in to your Dropbox Basic account with the same email and password that you used for your member account. You can also change the email address associated with your new Dropbox Basic account.