Cloud Storage & File Transfer Reviews
How long do files on a free storage plan survive?
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The Short Answer
- Dropbox — Dropbox counts an account inactive after no log-in or file activity "during the past 12 months", then sends "multiple reminder emails before it's automatically closed, and your files will be deleted within 90 days".
- Proton Drive — Proton states free accounts must "sign in to Proton and use one of our services at least once a year", warns "30 days, 15 days, and 7 days before" deletion, and says the policy "does not apply to paid plans".
- Filen — Filen gives "10 GiB of free storage" and states "For free accounts, data will be deleted after 3 months of inactivity" — a quarter of the grace period Dropbox and Proton give.
- WeTransfer — WeTransfer's free plan states "Transfer expiry up to 3 days", a clock that runs from sending rather than from your last log-in; "Unlimited transfer expiration" is the paid Ultimate plan's feature.
| Product | Best for | From | Free plan | Free-plan lifespan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dropbox | Twelve months, then ninety days of warnings | $9.99/mo (annual) | Yes | Deleted once inactive |
| Proton Drive | Twelve months, with three dated warnings | $3.99/mo (annual) | Yes | Deleted once inactive |
| Filen | The biggest free tier and the shortest fuse | — | Yes | Deleted once inactive |
| WeTransfer | Three days, whether you show up or not | $8/mo | Yes | Expires either way |
The number nobody puts on the pricing page
Every storage comparison ranks free tiers by gigabytes. It is the number vendors lead with and the number aggregators copy. It is also, on its own, close to meaningless, because a free tier is a promise with two terms — how much, and for how long — and only one of them appears next to the price.
The second term is published. It just lives on a support page:
| Free size | Deleted after | |
|---|---|---|
| Dropbox | 2 GB | 12 months inactive, then 90 days |
| Proton Drive | 5 GB | 12 months inactive |
| Filen | 10 GiB | 3 months inactive |
| WeTransfer | — | up to 3 days, regardless |
Put the two columns side by side and they run in opposite directions. Filen offers five times Dropbox’s free storage and a quarter of its grace period. A table of free gigabytes ranks Filen first and Dropbox last. A table of how long the files last inverts it exactly. Both tables are true; only the first one usually gets published.
Neither ranking is the right one in the abstract. They answer different questions. If the free tier holds working files you touch weekly, Filen’s three-month clock will never fire and the extra 8 GB is real. If it holds the thing free storage is most often used for — an archive, a backup, photos from a phone you no longer use — the three-month clock is the whole story, and it is the one number that decides whether the files are still there when you finally go looking.
What the paid plans are actually selling
Two vendors state it in a single sentence each, and reading them together is the clearest description of this market anyone has written:
- Proton: the inactivity policy “does not apply to paid plans.”
- Filen: “As long as you are paying for a plan, your data will never be deleted.”
What you buy is not space. Space is cheap and they give it away. What you buy is permanence — the removal of the clock. That is a coherent product and both companies are honest about it, but it reframes what a free tier is: not a smaller version of the paid service, but the same service with an expiry date attached.
Proton is the most careful about the ending. It publishes the warning schedule as three specific intervals — “30 days, 15 days, and 7 days before your account is scheduled for deletion” — rather than promising to be in touch. It is also the most consequential, because deletion takes the whole Proton account: “emails, contacts, calendars, passwords, and files.”
WeTransfer is answering a different question
WeTransfer is in this comparison because people reach for it to move files, and it is judged separately because its clock measures something else entirely. “Transfer expiry up to 3 days” runs from the moment you send, not from your last log-in. Staying active does not help. There is no free tier that keeps a file, which is not a restriction on free storage so much as an absence of it.
The paid page confirms the reading without ambiguity: Ultimate’s feature is “Unlimited transfer expiration” and the ability to “Recover expired transfers.” Retention is the product being sold here, not a condition attached to a free product. That is a different answer from the other three, so it is recorded as a different verdict rather than flattened into the same one.
Twelve months, then ninety days of warnings
1. Dropbox — Twelve months, then ninety days of warnings
The longest published runway here, and the most final ending.
Best for The longest published grace period, and the most final ending
From $9.99/mo (annual). Free plan: Basic — "2 GB to store and share your files." The page states no file-size limit, device limit or link-expiry figure for Basic..
- Plus — $9.99/mo billed annually · 1 seat (2 TB. The page rendered "US$9.99/월" for Plus under both the monthly and the yearly toggle. We are recording only the annual figure: an identical price on both cycles is unusual enough that we cannot tell whether it is the real month-to-month price or a toggle that did not re-render, and we do not publish a number we are not sure we read.)
- Standard — $15/mo billed annually ("US$15/월(1인당)" — per person, team storage from 3 TB, minimum 1 person. Same figure on both billing toggles, same caveat as Plus.)
- Advanced — $24/mo billed annually ("US$24/월(1인당)" — per person, team storage from 15 TB, minimum 3 people. Same figure on both billing toggles, same caveat as Plus.)
- Enterprise — price not shown on the page we opened ("요금 문의" — contact for pricing. No figure published.)
Free Basic holds 2 GB, and it holds it on a clock. Dropbox's help centre: "Dropbox determines inactive accounts by looking at log-ins and file activity (adding, editing, or deleting) anywhere on Dropbox during the past 12 months." If you do not respond, "we'll send multiple reminder emails before it's automatically closed, and your files will be deleted within 90 days." Twelve months of silence plus a ninety-day close-out is the longest published runway of the four — and the page also states the account will not be reopened afterwards.
Pros
- The inactivity rule is published with two concrete numbers — 12 months to trigger it, then a 90-day window with reminder emails — rather than a vague "extended period".
- Free storage is real storage: nothing on the free tier expires on a per-file timer the way a transfer service's links do.
- The definition of "active" is spelled out as log-ins *or* file activity, so it is checkable rather than a matter of interpretation.
Skip it if
- 2 GB free is the smallest free tier of the four — a fifth of Filen's, less than half of Proton's.
- Once an account is closed for inactivity Dropbox states it will not reopen it; the deletion is final.
- The pricing page states no file-size or device-count limit for Basic, so what else the free tier restricts is not answerable from it.
Twelve months, with three dated warnings
2. Proton Drive — Twelve months, with three dated warnings
The clearest warning schedule, and the most that goes with the account.
Best for The one that tells you three times before it deletes anything
From $3.99/mo (annual). Free plan: Proton Free — "5 GB of storage, photos and documents", an "Online document and spreadsheet editor", and "All protected with end-to-end encryption." No file-size, device-count or link-expiry limit is stated for the free tier..
- Drive Plus — $4.99/mo, or $3.99/mo billed annually · 1 seat (200 GB. "$3.99/month" when billed annually — "Billed at $47.88 every 12 months" — against $4.99 month to month. A 20% promotion was running when we read the page, so the annual figure may not be the standing price.)
- Proton Unlimited — $12.99/mo, or $9.99/mo billed annually · 1 seat (500 GB plus VPN, Mail, Calendar and Pass. "Billed at $119.88 every 12 months." 23% promotion displayed at time of reading.)
- Proton Duo — $19.99/mo, or $14.99/mo billed annually · 2 seats (2 TB plus VPN, up to 2 users. "Billed at $179.88 every 12 months." 25% promotion displayed at time of reading.)
- Proton Family — $29.99/mo, or $23.99/mo billed annually · 6 seats (3 TB, up to 6 users. 20% promotion displayed; the annual total was not shown on the render we read.)
- Drive Professional — $9.99/mo, or $7.99/mo billed annually (1 TB per user, business plan. 20% promotion displayed at time of reading.)
Five free gigabytes, on the same twelve-month clock as Dropbox but with a different exit. Proton's support page: "If you're on a Proton Free plan, your account must stay active to avoid deletion. To keep your account active, sign in to Proton and use one of our services at least once a year", and "If you've been inactive for more than 12 months, your account could be deleted" — preceded by emails "30 days, 15 days, and 7 days before your account is scheduled for deletion." Deletion covers "emails, contacts, calendars, passwords, and files." The same page states the policy "does not apply to paid plans", which names the thing being sold precisely: permanence.
Pros
- The warning schedule is published as three specific dates — 30, 15 and 7 days out — not as "we will notify you".
- 5 GB free, with end-to-end encryption described as standard on the free tier rather than as a paid upgrade.
- The support page says outright that the inactivity policy "does not apply to paid plans", so what payment buys is stated instead of implied.
Skip it if
- Deletion is permanent and takes the whole account with it — mail, contacts, calendars and passwords, not just Drive files.
- The pricing page states no per-file size limit or device cap for the free tier, so those questions are unanswerable from it.
- The page geo-detects currency (it served us KRW) and the USD figures only appear after switching the selector by hand; every price above was read in that USD view, under promotional discounts.
The biggest free tier and the shortest fuse
3. Filen — The biggest free tier and the shortest fuse
Five times the storage, a quarter of the time.
Best for The biggest free tier and the shortest fuse attached to it
From —. Free plan: From the pricing page's own FAQ: "Filen provides 10 GiB of free storage. Charges only apply if you require additional storage." No file-size or device-count limit is stated for the free tier..
- Pro I — price not shown on the page we opened (200 GiB. Published only in euros — "1.99€ monthly" / "19.99€ annually". The FAQ says "you are not limited to paying only in euros", but no USD figure appears anywhere on the page, and we do not convert.)
- Pro II — price not shown on the page we opened (500 GiB. "3.99€ monthly" / "39.99€ annually". EUR only.)
- Pro III — price not shown on the page we opened (2 TiB. "8.99€ monthly" / "89.99€ annually". EUR only.)
- Pro X — price not shown on the page we opened (10 TiB. "39.99€ monthly" / "399.99€ annually". EUR only. Plans stack: "Combine two Pro X plans for 20 TiB on one Filen account, with no upper limit.")
Ten free gibibytes, the largest here, on a clock four times shorter than anyone else's. The pricing-page FAQ: "As long as you are paying for a plan, your data will never be deleted. For free accounts, data will be deleted after 3 months of inactivity. To prevent this, we will send you several reminder emails, prompting you to log in to your account. To keep an account active, you simply need to log in at least once every 3 months." Dropbox and Proton both give twelve months; Filen gives three. The size of the free tier and the length of its grace period are not the same generosity, and this is the clearest case of the two moving in opposite directions.
Pros
- 10 GiB free, the largest free allowance of the three vendors here that offer persistent storage.
- The deletion rule, its trigger and its remedy are stated in one paragraph on the pricing page itself, not buried in a separate policy document.
- Client-side encryption is described as standard on every tier including free, and plans stack on a single account with "no upper limit".
Skip it if
- Three months of inactivity deletes free data — a quarter of Dropbox's or Proton's window, and the shortest of any persistent-storage service we read.
- Every price is published in euros only. The FAQ confirms you may pay by card or PayPal in other currencies, but no USD figure exists on the page, so the "From" column here stays empty rather than converted.
- Lifetime plans, which carried a three-year inactivity window instead of three months, are gone: "We have removed our lifetime plans from the lineup for an indefinite period."
Three days, whether you show up or not
4. WeTransfer — Three days, whether you show up or not
Not free storage with a limit — a transfer service where retention is the paid feature.
Best for Sending a file to someone with no account on either end
From $8/mo. Free plan: Free — "For individual, non-commercial use only." "Share and receive up to 3 GB / month", "10 transfers per month", "Transfer expiry up to 3 days.".
- Starter — $8/mo · 1 seat ("$8/month, billed monthly." Up to 300 GB a month, still 10 transfers a month and still 3-day expiry. The page's yearly toggle did not re-render reliably for us, so no annual figure is recorded.)
- Ultimate — $23/mo · 1 seat ("$23, per month, billed monthly." No transfer-size limit, unlimited transfers, and "Unlimited transfer expiration". Annual figure not captured.)
- Teams — $19/mo · 2 seats ("$19, per user / month, with a minimum of 2 users. Billed monthly." Up to 50 members. Annual figure not captured.)
- Enterprise — price not shown on the page we opened ("Custom — Price tailored to your business", for 50+ members.)
The other three delete free data when you stop showing up. WeTransfer deletes it whether you show up or not: the free plan states "Transfer expiry up to 3 days", so the clock is three days from sending, not twelve months from your last log-in. There is no free tier that keeps a file — and the paid page names the thing you are buying, because Ultimate's feature is "Unlimited transfer expiration" and the ability to "Recover expired transfers". Keeping a file is the product, not a side effect of it. That is a different answer from the others, so it is recorded as a different verdict.
Pros
- No account needed on either end: the FAQ states "anyone can download your files—there's no need for them to log in or sign up".
- The free limits are stated plainly and together — 3 GB a month, 10 transfers a month, 3-day expiry — with no fine print to reconcile.
- The paid upgrade is described in the same vocabulary as the free limit ("Unlimited transfer expiration"), so the comparison is direct.
Skip it if
- Free files are gone in up to 3 days by design — the shortest retention of anything in this category, and it runs regardless of whether you use the account.
- The FAQ mentions a separate 2 TB account-level cap on stored transfer history "regardless of the plan you're on", but the page never says whether that store is subject to any inactivity rule.
- The pricing page is entirely client-rendered; a plain fetch returns a loading skeleton with no plan data, so nothing here is readable without running a browser.
What this means if you are choosing today
For an archive you will not open often, Dropbox’s 2 GB is the safest free tier here despite being the smallest, because fifteen months of total runway is the longest of the four and the definition of “active” is the loosest.
For working files and privacy, Proton Drive’s 5 GB with end-to-end encryption on the free tier is the better balance, and its warning emails make the deadline hard to miss if the address on the account is one you still read.
Filen’s 10 GiB is the most storage and the most maintenance. Set a calendar reminder to log in quarterly, or treat it as space for things you are actively using. Note also that its prices are published only in euros, so the “From” column on this site is empty rather than converted.
And whichever you choose, the operative advice is the same: the account you must stay logged into is only as safe as the email address attached to it. Every deletion policy here begins by sending a warning to an address you may no longer check.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which free cloud storage keeps your files longest?
Dropbox, on published policy. It treats an account as inactive after 12 months with no log-in or file activity, then sends reminder emails and deletes files "within 90 days" of closing it — roughly fifteen months of total runway. Proton Drive also uses 12 months. Filen uses three. WeTransfer's free transfers expire in up to three days regardless.
Does Filen's larger free tier make it the better free plan?
It depends entirely on which number you care about. Filen's 10 GiB is five times Dropbox's 2 GB, and its deletion clock is a quarter as long. If the files are things you touch weekly, Filen is straightforwardly more generous. If they are an archive you might not open for a year, Filen is the only one of the three that would have deleted them.
What counts as being active enough to avoid deletion?
Each vendor defines it, and the definitions differ. Dropbox counts "log-ins and file activity (adding, editing, or deleting)". Proton says "sign in to Proton and use one of our services at least once a year", which its own account covers, not just Drive. Filen states "you simply need to log in at least once every 3 months." All three describe reminder emails first.
Why is WeTransfer judged differently from the others?
Because its clock measures something else. The other three delete free data when you stop showing up; WeTransfer's free transfers expire "up to 3 days" after sending whether you show up or not. There is no free tier that keeps a file, so the question is not restricted, it is unavailable — and Ultimate's headline feature is literally "Unlimited transfer expiration".
Did you test any of these deletion policies?
No, and no one reasonably could — verifying a 12-month inactivity policy takes 12 months. Every figure here was read on the vendor's own pricing page or support documentation on 6 August 2026 and is labelled as read, not run. This is a category where documentation is the only practical evidence, which is worth stating rather than implying.
How We Keep This Updated
Prices move and vendors rewrite their plan tables, so every value on this page carries the date we read it. When a page changes, the change lands here rather than being edited away quietly. The procedure is on the methodology page. tell us and we will re-check it.
- 2026-08-06 — First published. Inactivity policies read on each vendor's own support pages. Filen publishes prices in EUR only, so no USD figure is shown for it rather than converted; Dropbox rendered an identical figure under both billing toggles, so only the annual price is recorded.