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Dropbox announces family plan, password manager, and other security tools

Dropbox app
Image Credit: Paul Sawers / VentureBeat

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Dropbox has announced a handful of new features for consumers and business users as the cloud storage and productivity platform seeks to capitalize on the remote working boom. The company also announced that a new family plan is in the works that will cover up to six members of a household and allocate individual accounts and logins under a single subscription.

With work and home life blurring for millions of people during lockdown, Dropbox is targeting users across the spectrum with today’s updates. The company is also doubling down on efforts to lure free users onto its paid plans.

First up, the San Francisco-based company is launching a new password management service called Dropbox Passwords, the result of an acquisition it made last year with little fanfare. Last November, Dropbox snapped up Massachusetts-based Valt, which sunsetted its apps ahead of integration with Dropbox.

Similar to other password managers, Dropbox Passwords stores and encrypts users’ online passwords, and it syncs them across all devices to make it easier to log into websites and apps. This requires a separate Dropbox Passwords app, which was quietly launched a couple of weeks back, but it will be available to paid subscribers who log in with their Dropbox credentials.

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Above: Dropbox Passwords

A new feature called Dropbox Vault promises to help users securely share access to specific files. The Vault folder sits alongside other files and folders on Dropbox, but it can be protected behind a dedicated PIN code and can only be opened from Dropbox.com and the Dropbox mobile app — the files contained within Dropbox Vault are not stored locally on a user’s desktop.

Above: Dropbox Vault

Finally, Dropbox is also rolling out a new computer backup feature that automatically creates backups of PC or Mac files stored on the desktop, as downloads, or in document folders. These are continuously synced, so if you lose your laptop you will always have a backup stored in the cloud.

Above: Dropbox computer backup tool

All three of these consumer-focused features are available in beta for new Dropbox Plus users on mobile today, and they will be coming to all Dropbox Plus subscribers “in the coming weeks.” The computer backup feature is also available to Dropbox Basic and Professional users from today.

Arguably, one of the most long-awaited Dropbox features for consumers is the Family Plan — this will be made available to Dropbox Plus users in the coming weeks before coming to all Dropbox users later in the year. Essentially, it allows families to share 2 terabytes of storage between individual profiles, with all members able to create “shared spaces” for content such as photos, videos, and documents.

Dropbox confirmed that its Family Plan will cost $17 per month when billed annually or $20 when billed on a month-to-month basis.

Above: Dropbox Family

In the enterprise realm, Dropbox announced it would also embed HelloSign’s e-signature technology as a native feature within Dropbox, more than year after acquiring the company for $230 million. In effect, this makes HelloSign the default e-signature tool for Dropbox.

Finally, Dropbox is introducing a new Dropbox App Center, which serves as a centralized hub for all the tools and integrations from partner organizations, including Slack, Google, and Zoom. The App Center is currently available to a “subset of users” in beta, with more than 40 app partners featured for the inaugural rollout.

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