What is locked state for teams?

Updated Oct 22, 2024

This article describes a status applicable to some Dropbox team accounts.

Your team can end up in locked state if your Dropbox Standard, Business, Advanced, or Business Plus trial period expires, or if you cancel your team plan.

What will happen to your team will depend on whether you had a paid team subscription or a trial, and whether your team had any paid individual accounts:

A team canceling a paid subscription, and a trial team without any paid individuals, will go into locked state. If an admin doesn’t choose what to do with the team account within a certain timeframe, the team account may be deleted automatically.
- Admins will always be notified by email before their team account is deleted automatically.
- If your team trial concludes without converting to a paid subscription and you’re the only team admin (and there are no team members), we may downgrade you directly to Dropbox Basic after a period of time.
A trial team that has any paid individual accounts will be automatically disbanded, and members will return to the type of account they had before they signed up for the free trial.
- The team will be notified by email after the disband completes.

How do I know if my team is in locked state?

You’ll know your team account is in locked state because you’ll see red notification banners at the top of the page on dropbox.com and you’ll have limited functionality across Dropbox.

In locked state:

Your files won’t sync.
You won’t be able to create or upload any new files and folders.
You‘ll be able to view and download files and folders in your Dropbox account but you won’t be able to edit them.
Features such as inviting new members, suspending members, and managing groups will be disabled.
If you're on Dropbox Business, Business Plus, or enrolled in beta access on Dropbox Standard or Advanced, all signature features will be disabled on dropbox.com and the Dropbox mobile app.

Note: Teams in a locked state may be updated to the team space experience. Learn more about team spaces.

How to get out of locked state

If you’re a team member, you can:

Contact your admin and ask them to purchase or renew your team's subscription.
Leave your team, which will impact what content you can access.

If you're an admin, you may have the following options available:

Purchase or renew your team’s subscription
Disband your team
Delete your team
Downgrade to a Basic team
- Note: This option is currently only available to users in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.

After your team has been in a locked state for a certain period of time, admins and members may start to receive email notifications to let them know how much time they have to take one of the above actions. If you receive these notifications and no admin chooses one of these options within that timeframe, the team account will be deleted automatically.

Note: Admins will be notified by email before their team account is deleted automatically.

Admins: Choose what to do if your team is in locked state

To upgrade your subscription:

Log in to dropbox.com with your admin credentials.
Click Review options in the red banner at the top of your screen.
Click the blue Keep Dropbox for teams button.
- Note: If you don’t see this option, your team isn’t eligible to renew or purchase a team subscription.
Fill in your billing information.
- Note: Before upgrading, remove users who don't need access to the team content to avoid paying for unnecessary licenses. You should also cancel any nonessential pending invitations.

5. Click Purchase.

Notes:

After upgrading, you’ll need to reinvite any members who may have left your team while it was in locked state. These members won’t rejoin the team until they accept the invite.
Team members won’t be able to create another Dropbox account with the same email address until after 30 days.

When you disband your team:

All team members and admins get a Dropbox Basic account which contains their personal folder.
The content that was in the team space is placed into shared folders, owned by the team admin who triggered the team disband. All users who previously had access to this content, including admins, team members, and external collaborators, continue to have access to the shared folders.

Notes:

To prevent team members and other admins from keeping access to content that was in the team space, it’s easiest to convert their account to a Basic account before triggering the team disband. Alternatively, admins can choose to unshare specific files and folders before or after the team disband.
Capture content won’t be accessible after the team disbands.

Additionally, once a team disbands, the following happens:

The team structure is deleted.
Anyone granted access to shared folders within team folders keeps their permissions so they can view and interact with the content within.
Pending invites are deleted.
Suspended users are deleted.
Content from deleted team members will be permanently lost unless an account transfer has been completed.
Archived folders are unarchived, and the team admin who triggered the team disband owns them.
Deleted files and folders can't be restored.
Pending signature requests are canceled.
Signed documents can’t be edited, but can still be viewed or downloaded by all users who previously had access to the team folder.
Team members maintain ownership of signature templates that they created.
Signature templates will be locked. Purchasing Dropbox Essentials, Business, or Business Plus will unlock and restore the use of templates.
The ownership of a Replay team project will move to an admin when a team disbands. Team members can still access Replay projects from their individual accounts but will lose access to any files outside projects.
- Note: Admins can also choose to delete all Replay team content when disbanding a team. Deleted Replay content can only be recovered within 30 days of deletion.

To disband your team:

Log in to dropbox.com with your admin credentials.
Click Review options in the red banner at the top of your screen.
Click Cancel Dropbox and disband my team.
Select the option Save files and move to individual accounts.
Check the boxes next to:
- I understand that disbanding or deleting the team is permanent. The [Team name] team will no longer exist.
- I understand that I will lose the remaining days of my free team trial.
  - Note: This only shows if you’re on a free team trial.
Click Confirm.

Your team will be logged out when the disbandment is complete.

When you delete your team account, everything owned by the team is permanently deleted and can’t be restored. This includes all:

Team member accounts
Admin accounts, including the admin who triggered the team deletion
Content owned by the team, including shared folders
- Note: If your team account is deleted because of inaction by team admins, external collaborators with access to a team-owned shared folder will receive an automated email telling them that the folder will be deleted soon. To give external collaborators time to save any content that may belong to them, externally shared folders will have their deletion delayed. If your team prefers to delete all shared folders immediately, without giving any notice to external collaborators, a team admin should trigger the team deletion manually by following the steps below.
Personal folders
Team metadata

To delete your team account while it’s in locked state:

Log in to dropbox.com with your admin credentials.
Click Review options in the red banner at the top of your screen.
Click Cancel Dropbox and disband my team.
Select the option to Delete all files and all accounts.
Check the boxes next to:
- I understand that disbanding or deleting the team is permanent. The [Team name] team will no longer exist.
- I understand that I will lose the remaining days of my free team trial.
  - Note: This only shows if you’re on a free team trial.
Click Confirm.

This triggers the team deletion process. You’ll receive an email when the team deletion process is complete.

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

Note: Basic teams are currently only available to users in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.

Dropbox Basic teams is a free team plan that allows you to collaborate, share files and documents, and work on projects together, all within a shared workspace for up to 10 people.

Learn more about Basic teams.

Your team is eligible for a downgrade if:

It has 10 members or less
It has used 2 GB or less of storage space

Downgrading from a paid team plan will mean:

The storage space shared by the team will be 2 GB
The size limit for the team will be 10 members
Premium security features such as SSO, two-step authentication and device approval will be removed
Unlimited signature requests will be removed
The 180-day period to restore deleted files will be reduced to 30 days
The ability to track file engagement will be removed
API access for linked apps will be revoked

The admin downgrading the team will remain as the admin of the Basic team. Any other admins will become team members.

Team members in a Basic team will keep access to their member folder, as well as any team folders they previously had access to. Any member of a Basic team can create new team folders and set access restrictions for folders they create.

The team admin can remove members, or disband the team at any time.

How to downgrade a team

To downgrade your team from a paid team:

Log in to dropbox.com with your admin credentials.
Click Admin console in the left sidebar.
Click Billing in the left sidebar.
Scroll down and click Cancel plan.
Select the reason you’re canceling.
Click Continue with cancellation.
Under Please acknowledge the following, check all boxes.
Click Complete cancellation.
On your dropbox.com home page, click Review options in the red bar at the top of your screen.
Select Change to a free Dropbox plan for teams.
Click Confirm change.