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I removed members but folder is still shown as shared. Why?
I have removed all the members from a folder which was shared before. Even after removing all the members the folder still is treated as a shared folder. The share folder icon is still there. If I wa...
Hey there spaul - sorry to hear about this.
Can you tell me the exact steps you take to do this as I am not able to reproduce this on my end? Once I unshared the folder it became a normal folder immediately (without the 2 little people icon on it).
Moreover, currently, there's no way to share a folder that already contains a shared folder.
One workaround is to share a link to the parent folder of the shared subfolder. While this would give recipients of the link access to all folders in that path, any changes they make to files in that folder won't sync with your Dropbox. If you'd like to give them read-write access to the parent folder instead, you can unshare the subfolder, share the parent folder, and then share a link to the subfolder.
Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there. Thank you.
Just after I posted this I found the solution so Dropbox won't see the folder as shared anymore.
- Click on the Share button for the folder
- Go to the settings icon
- Bottom left, you have the option to unshare folder
Just after I posted this I found the solution so Dropbox won't see the folder as shared anymore.
- Click on the Share button for the folder
- Go to the settings icon
- Bottom left, you have the option to unshare folder
This doesn't seem to work for folders that are in a business/teams folder. Can anybody from druidbox clarify how to "remove share" on a folder within a Teams folder that's been shared that I want to unshare?
I'm going to voice my complete dissatisfaction with the implementation of sharing in Dropbox - largely on how impossible it is to remove shares after sharing. It's a huge security risk and all the forum entries by Dropbox basically say they don't care.
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
Sorry to hear about the frustration this has caused avcs. I'll try to help now!
From what I understand you'd like to unshare folders that reside within your Team Folder(s).
Note that all subfolders of a team folder have the team folder “building icon”, because they are shared with the same users that the team folder is shared with by default. This includes shared folders that are nested inside a team folder.
Nested shared folders also differ from normal shared folders in the following respects:
- Management, since nested shared folders can be managed through your admin console: https://www.dropbox.com/team/admin/team_folders
- Unsharing: If you open the folder settings for these types of folders, you will find that there is no “unshare” button. This is because it isn’t possible to “unshare” those folders. If you have explicitly added any members who were not part of the team folder group, you can remove their access individually. If you don’t want the team folder group to have access any longer, you’ll have to copy the folder outside the team folder, then delete it.
- Deleting: If you delete a subfolder of a team folder it will be deleted for all of its members. This includes team folder members as well as any other members you explicitly added to that folder.
-
Restoring/adding back: If you deleted a subfolder of a team folder, even if it was shared with others, it won’t appear on www.dropbox.com/share. In order to add back the folder, you'd need to follow these steps:
- Sign into www.dropbox.com
- Navigate through your file browser to the parent folder of the folder you would like to restore
- Click the "Show deleted files" button
- Select the folder in question
- Choose “Restore”
I hope this information helps and please keep me posted on your progress.
Thanks for the quick response, Walter, but this doesn't resolve the issue.
For my personal account, I was able to use the "unshare" tool to remove the "buddies" icon on shared folders. imho, that icon and "sharing" should be removed from a folder once all the people it is shared with have been removed. it's stupid to think that the folder is shared once I've removed everybody, which is the confusion that Kzoppo is voicing above.
For folders within a Team Folder, if I've shared them outside of Teams, because there is no "unshare" option, even after removing everybody, the folder retains the "buddies" icon on my computer, suggesting that it's still shared to people outside my team, making it even harder to determine what's shared/not, and further infuriating me at how terrible Dropbox is at one of its core features... sharing.
To solve this, I have to duplicate a folder, delete the original folder, wait for the new folder to fully sync, then rename it to the older folder name. What a hack.
I hire contractors on a daily basis, and this is just one of the many shortcomings in Dropbox that don't make it appropriate for working with contractors. It's nearly impossible to locate all the shared folders I've got with various contractors because dropbox REMOVED this functionality.
So, to try to follow what Dropbox seems to be trying to FORCE me to do, I tried signing up a couple contractors with licenses to join my business account at a cost of $15/month, so they could join the teams which would let me manage their access better. however, they've already got a business account, so they can't join my teams - Dropbox literally won't allow it.
Sharing the old way sucks because Dropbox has removed basic functionality for managing shared folders, and the permissions management in Teams that Dropbox seems to be pushing me toward by way of lack of visibility into sharing don't work with contractors who have multiple clients with separate business accounts. Why is it IMPOSSIBLE to view all folders that are shared in one place and/or all files/folders shared with a given user in one places!?!? that's absurd and it's a huge security risk that I can't easily remove somebody from files/folders after they've been removed from the team when I can't use Teams to manage them, since they already have a business account.
As far as I can tell, you're deliberately writing yourselves into obsolesence in a world where more and more work is shared and handled by contractors, so instead of taking my money to make my work with contractors easier, I'm now going to move to another solution that does have advanced, easy permissions management and makes working with teams of contractors easier.
I've tried hard to make Dropbox work, but it just falls short on too many levels to be a practical long-term solution without better sharing features and advanced permissions management that actually work.
- Walter
Thank you for your elaborate response avcs - most appreciated!
I'll definitely make sure to pass your comments on to our dev team - thank you for the constructive feedback.
In the meantime, I've just sent you a brief message to your Dropbox associated email address so we can have a further look at what's exactly troubling you. Take a look at your inbox when you get the chance and reply to me there so we can work on this together; if needed that is.
Thanks again and happy Monday!
