Safely deleting a Dropbox shared folder to clear up space

How can I delete a shared folder on my account, without another user, who was the original administrator of the file, losing their files?

I am trying to clear up space on my account being used by files I no longer use.

What I am really trying to understand is whether shared files count against my 2GB limit? Can I join a shared folder, download the files, and then delete the folder? Or will those downloaded files count against my limit? Or those files are just downloaded onto my hard drive?

Anything in your Dropbox folder counts to your limit. You can, of course, sync files from a shared folder, then move it elsewhere and leave the folder, but then any updates to those files will not be synchronized.

Yes, shared files do count against your limit.

To remove a shared folder from your account without deleting the files from the folder, you can log in to your account online, right-click the folder you want to leave, click "Shared folder options..." and then hit "Leave folder." This will leave the shared folder intact and will not change anything for other members of the folder, but it will no longer be part of your account and will not count against your limit.

If you want to keep the files in this folder, you'll have to save them before leaving the folder.