A standard (free) Dropbox is 2GB.  That can quickly be filled up, particularly if you want to use your Dropbox for photos or videos.

You can pay to increase this space to 50 GB ($9.99 per month) or 100 GB ($19.99 per month).

Another way to get an additional 3 GB (5 GB total space) is by accepting a referral, or by referring up to 12 people.

If someone refers you, and you use the link they sent when signing up, then you instantly get 2.25 GB on signup.  The person who referred you also gets an additional 250MB of space.

You can then refer other people, and for each person who signs up, you get an extra 250MB, up to a maximum of 3GB extra space (5GB in total) with a free account.

Here’s how to refer someone:

  1. Sign into your dropbox account at www.getdropbox.com
  2. On that page you should see:
    Get Extra Space Free
  3. Click on the ‘referring your friends’ link and you should then get a page with 3 options (A, B and C).
  4. Options B and C involve you entering someone else’s email address into a website – not something I’m ever comfortable doing – so I would use option A:
    Send them this link
  5. If you copy the whole link then paste it into an email, you can then send it to whoever you like.
    If you have a Facebook or Twitter account you can click on the links provided to share your referral link that way, or you can just paste the link into a blog or MySpace page etc.  That’s what I did on my earlier blog post.

The link is unique to you, so when your friend uses it to sign up, Dropbox know you’ve referred them and will give both of you some extra space.  I haven’t got the maximum space yet so here’s a handy referral link for you to use: https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTE3MTg4ODM5 😉

To find out how to share a folder with someone, see Sharing a Dropbox folder.