Leaving Dropbox

How to move your files out of Dropbox

Dropbox has no export button for everything, but there are three practical ways to get your files out. Here is how each one works, where it stops, and how to check that nothing was left behind.

Updated 5 October 2026 · 6 min read

Moving out of Dropbox comes down to one question: how do your files get from Dropbox's servers to somewhere you control? There are three practical routes. Which one fits depends on how much you have and whether you are comfortable with a command line.

Pick the route that fits your data

• The website (.zip download): simplest, good for a few folders. It has hard limits on size and number of files.
• The Dropbox desktop app: your files end up in a normal folder on your computer, as long as they are really stored on the disk and not only online.
• rclone: a free command-line program that can copy from Dropbox straight to another storage service. It is the most reliable for large collections. It takes about ten minutes to set up.

Whatever you choose, keep your Dropbox account as it is until you have checked the copy. A move is only finished when you have verified it.

Route 1: download from dropbox.com

1. Log in to dropbox.com.
2. Hover over a file or folder and click the checkbox next to it.
3. Tick the other files and folders you want.
4. Click “Download”. Folders arrive as a .zip file.

Dropbox's own limits for this method: a folder downloads only if it is smaller than 250 GB (uncompressed) and contains fewer than 10,000 files in total. Files inside subfolders count towards the 10,000. Single files have no size limit. For larger downloads, Dropbox's help page points you to the desktop app, because of browser and network limitations.

In practice: if you have one big folder with many small files (photos, for example), split the download into several smaller folders, or use one of the other two routes.

Route 2: the desktop app and offline files

If the Dropbox desktop app is already installed, your files appear in a Dropbox folder on your computer. But not every file there is actually on your disk. Dropbox calls some files online-only: they are “stored online and won't take up storage space on your computer”. You can't copy a file that isn't on the disk.

1. Check which folders are synced. On Windows: click Dropbox in the taskbar, then your account menu (profile photo or initials), “Preferences”, the “Sync” tab, and under “Selective Sync” click “Modify”. On a Mac: Dropbox in the menu bar, your avatar, “Preferences”, “Sync”, then “Modify” under “Select folders to sync to this Mac”.
2. Tick every folder you want to move and click “Update”.
3. In the Dropbox folder, right-click the folders you want and choose “Make available offline”.
4. Wait until the download has finished, and make sure your disk has enough free space for everything.

Once the files are really on your computer, you can upload them anywhere. This matters for our website too: a browser can't read a file that exists only online, so an upload of an online-only file fails until you make it available offline.

Route 3: copy with rclone

rclone describes itself as “a command-line program to manage files on cloud storage”. It knows Dropbox (the remote type is called dropbox) and dozens of other services. Our rclone and WebDAV guide explains how to install it and how to add LifetimeCloud as a second remote. Then:

1. Run rclone config, choose n for a new remote and give it a name, for example dropbox.
2. At Storage> type dropbox.
3. Leave “Dropbox App Key” and “Dropbox App Secret” blank: rclone's documentation says to leave them blank normally.
4. When asked “Use web browser to automatically authenticate rclone with remote?”, answer y. A browser page opens; log in to Dropbox and allow access.
5. Try a preview first: rclone copy dropbox: lifetimecloud:Dropbox --dry-run. Nothing is transferred; rclone only shows what it would do.
6. Run the real copy: rclone copy dropbox: lifetimecloud:Dropbox --progress.

Two things to know. First, the data is not copied “cloud to cloud”: rclone's documentation explains that between different services it downloads and re-uploads, so everything passes through the computer running rclone and uses its connection in both directions. A computer that stays on overnight is ideal. Second, use copy, not sync: sync deletes files in the destination to make it match the source.

Check that everything arrived

Don't delete anything from Dropbox until you have checked the copy:

• Run the same rclone copy command again with --dry-run. rclone copies files “skipping identical files”, so a second run should find little or nothing to transfer. Anything it lists is missing or different.
• Compare folder by folder: rclone lsd dropbox: and rclone lsd lifetimecloud:Dropbox list the folders on each side, rclone ls lists the files with their sizes.
• Open a few files at random on the destination, especially large videos and old documents.

If you downloaded .zip files from the website, unzip them and compare the number of files with what Dropbox shows. And keep more than one copy of anything you can't replace: the 3-2-1 backup rule explains why one destination is not enough.

Where LifetimeCloud fits

There is no direct import from Dropbox into LifetimeCloud: you either download and upload again, or use rclone between the two services. You have two ways to upload:

• From the website, on a computer: use “Upload folder” or drag whole folders into the page. The content of your files is encrypted on your device before it leaves, with AES-256-GCM. Folder upload and drag and drop work from a computer, not from a phone.
• Over WebDAV (rclone, as above): faster for large amounts, but not end-to-end encrypted unless you add an rclone crypt remote.

The WebDAV address is https://lifetimecloud.me/dav/<username>/. You sign in with your username and a WebDAV token, not your account password. Create the token under “Profile” → “Full profile & settings” → “WebDAV / rclone Access” → “+ Enable WebDAV”. Deleting through WebDAV is permanent: it does not go through the trash.

The free account (1 GB, up to 50 files, 50 MB per file, no card) is enough to try the process with one folder, WebDAV included. To move a whole Dropbox you need more room: the paid plans are 1 TB and 2 TB with a one-time payment. Current prices are on the plans page. If you also have files on Google Drive or OneDrive, the same method works: see importing from Google Drive and OneDrive.