How to Move Files from Dropbox to Backblaze B2
· 3 min read · Updated
Dropbox is good at sync: files you drop in a folder show up on all your devices. As your data grows, it gets expensive. The Plus plan costs $120 a year for 2 TB, and 5 TB or more needs Dropbox Business at $180 a year per user.
Backblaze B2 charges $6.95 per TB a month for storage, which for 2 TB is about $14 a month or $167 a year. Much of what sits in Dropbox is old projects, archives, backups and photos from three years ago. That data only needs to be stored cheaply and retrieved when you want it, without syncing to every device.
For archives and backups, Backblaze B2 is significantly cheaper, and you pay only for what you use, with no fixed plans or storage ceilings.
The usual approach is to download everything from Dropbox to your computer, then upload it to Backblaze B2. That works for small amounts of data. For 500 GB or more, it runs into problems:
- You need enough free space on your local disk to hold the download
- Downloading takes hours or days depending on your connection
- Uploading to B2 takes equally long
- If anything fails midway, you start over
rclone can do this too, but you configure both remotes in a text file, learn the command syntax and handle errors yourself. It is a solid choice if you are comfortable in a terminal, and hard going if you are not.
In Blober you add both accounts, pick the files to move, and start the transfer. Files stream from Dropbox through your computer to Backblaze B2, so nothing has to be saved on your disk first.
Add Dropbox as a provider in Blober. Click the OAuth login button and authorize Blober with your Dropbox account. Blober stores your credentials on your own computer, and no server holds them.
Add Backblaze B2 as a provider. You will need your Application Key ID and Application Key from the Backblaze dashboard. Blober verifies the connection and lists your buckets.
Create a new workflow with Dropbox as the source and Backblaze B2 as the destination. Browse your Dropbox files, select what you want to transfer, and choose the B2 bucket to send it to.
Click run. Blober transfers the files with parallel uploads, shows progress, and resumes automatically if your connection drops.
Blober keeps your folder structure. If you have Projects/2024/Client-A/ in Dropbox, it creates the same path in your B2 bucket.
| Dropbox Plus | Backblaze B2 (2 TB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $10/month | ~$14/month |
| 5 TB | Need Business plan ($15/user/mo) | ~$35/month |
| 10 TB | Need Business plan | ~$70/month |
| Egress | Free (sync) | Free to Cloudflare partners, $0.01/GB otherwise |
| API access | OAuth | S3-compatible |
For storage you do not need synced, B2 costs less at every tier above 2 TB. If you pair B2 with Cloudflare's CDN through the Bandwidth Alliance, egress is free.
You do not have to leave Dropbox entirely. It is good for active files you need on every device, so for most people the sensible split is:
- Keep Dropbox for current projects and files you use often
- Move archives, old projects and large media to Backblaze B2
- Transfer the archives once with Blober, then cancel the upgraded Dropbox plan
Is Backblaze B2 cheaper than Dropbox? Not at 2 TB, where Dropbox Plus costs $120 a year and B2 about $167. At 5 TB or more, Dropbox needs a Business plan at $15 per user a month, while B2 keeps charging $6.95 per TB a month for what you store.
Do I need rclone to move Dropbox to Backblaze B2? No. rclone works if you are happy to configure remotes in a text file and run commands. Blober does the same transfer from a desktop app: connect both accounts, pick the files, and run it.
What happens if the transfer is interrupted? Blober resumes automatically when your connection comes back, so you do not start over the way you would with a manual download and upload.