New Terms from 1 January 2027: free accounts can be closed after 6 months idle, users must be 18+

Dropbox's revised Terms of Service page carries the dates "Posted: September 1, 2026" and "Effective: January 1, 2027". This archive compared its capture of that page, sentence by sentence, with its capture of the current Terms (effective 7 January 2025). Two changes affect who can hold an account at all. On inactivity, the current Terms let Dropbox suspend or terminate access, with notice, if Dropbox reasonably believes you "don’t have a Paid Account and haven't accessed our Services for 12 consecutive months"; the revised text says "6 consecutive months." Dropbox's help page on the updates adds: "We’ll continue to provide notice before doing so." On age, the current Terms say "at least 13 if you reside in the United States, and 16 if you reside anywhere else"; the revised Terms say "you must be at least 18" and add: "Dropbox may use and rely on information from third parties, including age signals from app stores, for the purpose of enforcing this restriction." The pages reviewed do not say what happens to accounts that users under 18 already hold.

Four changes concern money and exit. Refunds: the current Terms say "Refunds are only issued if required by law"; the revised text says "Refunds are only issued in limited circumstances or if required by law." Dropbox's help page on the updates describes this as: "We’re clarifying that we may also grant refunds in other limited circumstances." The Terms text captured here does not define those circumstances, and Dropbox's refund help page (updated 29 October 2025) still says "In most cases, payments for Dropbox and Dropbox Dash subscriptions and team member licenses aren’t refundable." Fee notice: the promise of "no less than 30 days’ advance notice" of a fee change now begins "Unless a shorter notice period is necessitated by applicable law," and the rest of the sentence, including the chance to cancel before the new fee applies, is unchanged. On its face that is a legal-requirement exception, not a general shortening of notice, and the pages reviewed do not say which laws Dropbox has in mind. Declining the update: the current Terms ask users who disagree to "please cancel your account and stop using the Services"; the revised text says "please cancel and delete your account", in both cases before the updated Terms become effective. The sentence "By continuing to use or access the Services after the updates come into effect, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms" becomes "By maintaining an account after the updates come into effect, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms." Dropbox's help page puts it this way: "if you don’t agree with updates we make to the Terms of Service, you must cancel and delete your account before the updated Terms become effective." On the wording, the way to decline is now deletion, and agreement attaches to maintaining an account rather than to continuing to use the Services. Both versions of the Terms also say: "Where applicable, we’ll offer you a prorated refund based on the amounts you have prepaid for Services and your account cancellation date." The pages reviewed do not say whether that is among the "limited circumstances" in the new refund wording. They also do not say how Dropbox treats an account that nobody logs in to across 1 January 2027.

Two changes concern people with more than one Dropbox workspace on one email address, and a third concerns work email addresses. The revised Terms say: "Actions taken on one account, including suspension, deletion, termination, or removal from a Dropbox Team, may impact your access to or use of the Services." Their example is that if an admin removes you from their team and deletes your account on that team, "you may be unable to access your other accounts until you change the email address for those accounts." On enforcement: "If you have multiple accounts associated with the same email address, and we suspend or terminate your access to the Services, that action may apply to all associated accounts." The pages reviewed do not say whether that covers a termination for inactivity, or accounts that have a Paid Account. On work email, the revised Terms say that even if your organization does not block your use of Dropbox, "we may block your use of Dropbox and require you to transition to an account on a Dropbox Team or associate your Dropbox account with a personal email address to continue using Dropbox." The next sentence adds: "If you have multiple accounts associated with the same email address, and the email address was provisioned by your organization, you may be required to transition all of the accounts to a Dropbox Team or change the email address associated with those accounts." The revised Privacy Policy (also posted 1 September 2026 and effective 1 January 2027) adds that team administrators "may be able to view changes in account state for your other accounts, such as suspension, deletion, termination, account capture, or removal from another Dropbox Team." It also adds a pointer, "Please see our FAQ for more detail regarding how Your Stuff may be used to improve the Services.", and an appeal route: "please email us at [email protected]". The revised Terms also drop the sentence about the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform; this archive states the removal only, because the pages reviewed give no reason. The Privacy Policy comparison contains further rewording that this entry does not list.

Not everything moved. The sentence "To provide these and other features, Dropbox accesses, stores, and scans Your Stuff." appears in both the current and the revised Terms (see /questions/does-dropbox-scan-my-files). On the 6-month change, Dropbox's inactive-account help page ("Updated Aug 31, 2026" in this archive's capture, the day before the revised Terms were posted) still describes a 12-month test: "Dropbox determines inactive accounts by looking at log-ins and file activity (adding, editing, or deleting) anywhere on Dropbox during the past 12 months." That matches the Terms in force today, but it means the page a user would consult describes a threshold that the posted Terms replace from 1 January 2027. The pages reviewed do not say whether time already idle before 1 January 2027 counts toward the 6 months, or whether the help page will be revised. See /issues/inactive-account-deletion-stranding-users for the notice emails and the history of that help page.