Lately I’ve been cleaning up things in my little corner of the online word. Digital clutter and inertia are dangerous things. In the physical word, there are limits to clutter. You most likely have limited space and things eventually reach a point where you (or some one else) has to deal with the clutter. But in the digital arena space is an abstract idea.
You can sign up for a free service and never use it again, or maybe you’re paying for a service you just keep paying for it because you don’t want to deal with moving things. I’ve used Dropbox for online file storage since 2010 and I’ve been on a paid plan since at least 2015. On my most recent plan, I had two terabytes of storage space that I only used a fraction of. I also have Apple iCloud backing up my phone. It has two terabytes of storage as well, that again I’m only using a fraction of.
I pay for Dropbox yearly, and my renewal date is later this month. Dropbox has lots of nice features for collaborating and sharing files that I never use, I mainly use it to get to files if I happen to be using a different computer. iCloud can do that too, but I’ve not wanted to spend the time to move the files. But now I’ve finally done it, I’ve moved everything to iCloud. Now I don’t have to pay for Dropbox, and I don’t have to remember which service I put my files on.
Everyone has different needs and over time your needs change. It’s helpful to survey the situation every once in a while and get rid of things to don’t need. It may save you money and let you avoid a scavenger hunt later.
Last Updated on June 10, 2025, originally posted June 10, 2025 by Dan