Learn how to make the most out of the Dropbox Community here 💙.
Forum Discussion
I need advice and have questions on folder structures in Dropbox Business
Hi all -- our small organization is a long-time Dropbox user. As such, our file structure predates when Dropbox added Team folders. Currently, all shared folders and each staffer's individual folder is nested under MY folder (as I'm the admin) since that's how it used to work.
I know I need to take the time to reorganize our file structure to work with team folders but had a few questions. (FYI we are currently grandfathered under an old Standard plan but I'm likely to change over to Business as it's the same price and has a few more features). I appreciate any feedback on the following questions.
- Can I move the existing folders out from under my folder and convert them into Teams folders, or do I have to create the equivalent Teams folder and manually move everything?
- Do people recommend having one main Team folder for a whole organization, and then create subfolders under it for different user groups, or do you recommend having a separate Team folder for each user group (for example, one team folder for all staff, one team folder for senior staff, or all nested together)?
- The "personal folder" that Dropbox Business creates -- as far as I can tell, unless I upgrade to Business Plus, I have no access to it as the admin. Which means if a staffer leaves, our organization loses anything they have stored in their personal folder? (Right now because I create a "personal" folder for them under My folder, we still retain access to those files when someone leaves). If I have no admin access, this makes me very uncomfortable as often people will save work files in their named user folder if it's something nobody else needs access to -- but it's still a work file and we want to retain it. People shouldn't be saving truly personal stuff on their work systems anyways. Is there any way to turn off the creation of this "personal folder" when you create a new user?
Thank you for any advice or suggestions - I appreciate them in advance.
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi mpedroso, thanks for the details!
Could you clarify what you mean by each staff member having a folder in your folder? If you're already in a Dropbox team, then there should be team folders already existing on your Dropbox account.
Depending on your team structure, you might find it helpful to separate team folders for different user groups, like marketing, HR, admin, general information, and so on. It's relatively easy to add users to specific groups to be added to those folders.
Personal folders on a Dropbox team can only be accessed by that specific user. When you delete a team member, you can transfer the files of the user to an existing user on your account, including yourself.
If you need any further assistance, please let me know!
Hi Jay --
Because we want each person to have a folder for their own work when it's not relevant to being put into shared folders, I've created a folder for each person called for example Jsmith-Personal that is shared with the person and with me as admin. It is nested underneath my folder with everything else. We've had issues where a staffer had to go out on extended leave unexpectedly, for example, and we needed access to their personal folder. My main concern about the way Dropbox creates the automatic personal folders is that a supervisor or admin can't access if needed. It's good to know we can transfer them if they are deleted, but there's no recourse if they are on emergency leave for example? That's why I really hesitate to use these personal folders that Dropbox creates automatically.
And -- as I mentioned, we have Teams but I have never created/used Team folders since we were already set up by the time this came online. Can you convert a non-team folder/subfolder to a Team folder? Or do I have to manually move everything from the non-team folder to the Team folder?
Thanks!
- Jay
If you are on one of these plans, you can sign in as one of the users on your Dropbox team, allowing you access to their personal folder.
Currently, it isn't possible to convert a folder into a team folder, you'd need to create it manually and then move the files into the team folder.
