Dropbox is a polished product, and leaving it should not be a leap of faith. This guide is for teams who have decided, or are close to deciding, to move their files to a private Nextcloud run by us, and who want to know exactly what a migration involves before anyone commits. If you are still weighing the two products, start with the comparison instead: Nextcloud vs Dropbox.
The headline is simple: migration is included in the managed service. There is no separate migration fee and no professional services quote. We transfer your files and folder structures, map teams and permissions to groups, connect single sign-on, and verify the result against the source, and your Dropbox account stays live and untouched until you confirm the move. The rest of this page is the detail, including the parts that do not carry over, because knowing those in advance is the difference between a routine move and a bad week.
What moves cleanly
Files and folder structures. The core of the migration is unglamorous: every file, in the folder it lives in, with the tree preserved as it stands. This is the bulk of the work by volume and the least risky part by nature.
Team structure and permissions. Dropbox team folders and member access map onto Nextcloud folders and groups. Who can see what is reproduced deliberately, reviewed with you, and enforced by the server rather than reconstructed from memory later.
The way your team works. Nextcloud has desktop sync clients for Windows, macOS and Linux with selective sync and virtual files, plus mobile apps and a web interface, so the day-to-day experience of "files just appear" carries across. Dropbox's sync engine is genuinely excellent, which is why our process includes a pilot group doing real work before anyone is switched.
What needs care
External integrations. Anything wired into Dropbox (backup tools, automations, e-signature flows, scanners that drop files into a folder) will not follow the files on its own. We list these during discovery and reconnect or replace them as part of the plan.
Dropbox Paper and file requests. Paper documents live outside the ordinary file tree and need exporting to a document format separately; file requests are not files at all, and are re-created as Nextcloud upload-only drop folders rather than migrated. Both are scoped in discovery so neither is discovered missing afterwards.
What does not carry over
Shared links. Every link you have ever sent points at dropbox.com. Those links keep working for as long as your Dropbox account exists, but they cannot be moved: sharing from Nextcloud means issuing new links. We inventory the active shares up front so reissuing is a checklist, not an archaeology project.
Version history. Dropbox stores previous versions of files for a period set by your plan: at the time of writing, around 30 days on Basic, Plus and Family, around 180 days on Professional, Essentials and the standard business tier, and up to a year on higher business tiers, per Dropbox's own documentation. That history lives inside Dropbox and no transfer tool copies it. What moves is the current version of each file; Nextcloud starts building its own version history from day one. If old versions matter, keep the Dropbox account open until its window has passed.
How we run the migration
We describe this in outcome terms because the outcomes are what you can hold us to.
- Discovery and scoping. We inventory the estate: how much data, how many members, the team folder structure, active external shares, and connected tools. You get a written plan, not a shrug.
- Trial sync of a pilot subset. A representative slice of folders moves first, and a pilot group uses Nextcloud for real work: syncing, sharing, editing. This is where sync-quality doubts get answered with evidence rather than assurances.
- Full transfer, source untouched. The main transfer reads from Dropbox and writes to Nextcloud. Nothing at the source is altered or deleted at any point.
- Permission and group mapping. Team folders and member permissions become Nextcloud groups and folder permissions, reviewed with you before anyone relies on them.
- Single sign-on. We connect Nextcloud to your identity realm so nobody needs new credentials, and a leaver loses access in one action.
- Verification against the source. File counts, sizes and spot checks, compared against Dropbox, with the results shared with you rather than asserted.
- Switchover. Only when you confirm do we roll sync clients over to Nextcloud, team by team if you prefer.
- Decommission on your say-so. The Dropbox account stays intact until you decide to close it. You close it, not us.
Doing it yourself instead
Fair is fair: the standard tooling for this move exists, is open source or built in, and works. If you want to run your own migration, this is the realistic outline.
rclone is the workhorse: it speaks to Dropbox and to Nextcloud (over WebDAV) and can copy between them. Its own documentation is honest about the sharp edges: Dropbox only sets a file's modification time by re-uploading it, so verification wants size or checksum comparison rather than timestamps; transfers hit Dropbox's rate limiting unless batch mode is used; and Dropbox is case-insensitive, which occasionally surprises tooling.
The Nextcloud desktop client can do a bulk upload: if the whole account is already synced to one machine, copying it into a synced Nextcloud folder moves the data. Practical for small estates; slow and fragile for large ones, and it moves files only, not permissions.
Web export is the blunt instrument: Dropbox lets you download folders as zip files, but at the time of writing a folder must be under roughly 250 GB and contain fewer than about 10,000 files to download that way, so a company account usually means many manual passes.
All three approaches move files. None of them maps team permissions to groups, connects single sign-on, reissues shares or verifies the result against the source; that work is manual either way, and it is most of what a migration actually is.
How to prepare
Whether we run the move or you do, the same preparation pays for itself:
- Audit what is actually used. Most Dropbox accounts carry years of sediment. Knowing which folders are live changes the shape of the move.
- Clean up before, not after. Deleting the dead weight in Dropbox is cheaper than migrating it and deleting it twice.
- Decide the folder and team structure you want, not the one you have. A migration is the one free opportunity to fix the layout everyone complains about.
- List the external shares that must be reissued, and who owns each relationship, so new links go out with a sentence of context instead of a dead link and silence.
- Note every tool connected to Dropbox, however small; the forgotten scanner in reception is a classic.
How long it takes
Honestly: it depends, and anyone quoting a firm duration before discovery is guessing. A pilot group is typically working in Nextcloud within days. The full transfer is governed by data volume and by Dropbox's own rate limits more than by anything on our side, and the switchover is paced by your team's comfort, not our calendar. We give you an estimate after discovery and we do not commit to durations we cannot control.
What you get at the end
Files on hardware we own in a UK datacentre, operated by a UK company with two named engineers, under a UK GDPR Article 28 data processing agreement, with server-side audit logging of access and shares. When a client or regulator asks where their documents live, the answer is one sentence, and it is yours.
The ongoing service is the same one that ran the migration: deployment, upgrades, security patching, nightly encrypted backups, monitoring, single sign-on and support from the engineers who run the platform, for a flat monthly fee per resource profile rather than a per-seat charge. What the service includes is on the Nextcloud page; current figures are on the pricing page. And if, after discovery, your situation is one where staying on Dropbox is genuinely the better deal, we will tell you that too.
Frequently asked questions
Does Dropbox stay live during the migration?
Yes. The transfer reads from Dropbox and writes to Nextcloud; nothing at the source is changed, moved or deleted. Your team keeps working in Dropbox until the switchover, and the account stays intact afterwards until you choose to close it, so there is a clean rollback path for the whole exercise.
What breaks when we leave Dropbox?
Two things, and we tell you before the move rather than after. Shared links you have sent out point at dropbox.com and cannot be migrated; they need reissuing from Nextcloud, and we inventory active shares during discovery so that is a checklist rather than a surprise. And Dropbox's stored version history stays in Dropbox: what moves is the current version of each file, with Nextcloud building its own history from day one.
How long does a Dropbox migration take?
A pilot group is typically working in Nextcloud within days. The full transfer depends on how much data you hold and on Dropbox's own rate limits, and the switchover is paced by your team, not by us, so we give you an estimate after discovery rather than promising a duration up front.
What does the migration cost?
Nothing on top. Migration is part of the managed service, which is a flat monthly fee per resource profile rather than a per-user charge. Current figures are on the pricing page.
Can we run the migration ourselves instead?
Yes, and the standard tooling is genuinely good: rclone speaks to both Dropbox and Nextcloud, and the Nextcloud desktop client can bulk-upload a synced folder. What the tools do not do is map team permissions to groups, connect single sign-on, or verify the result against the source; that is the part of the work we think is worth having done for you, but a small team with patience can absolutely do it themselves.
What happens to our Dropbox version history?
It stays in Dropbox. At the time of writing Dropbox keeps previous versions for around 30 days on its basic and personal plans and around 180 days on most business plans, with longer on higher tiers. No transfer copies that history out, so if it matters to you, keep the Dropbox account open until its retention window has run its course; Nextcloud versions every file from the moment it arrives.