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Forum Discussion
Amy
Community Manager
Community ManagerThere are some changes coming to links - here’s what you need to know
We try to keep you in the loop with big updates, and we have some news about links, so check this out and let us know what you think.
Dropbox is moving to an improved shared link architecture...
Hi there,
We've been having a lot of trouble with this change since it was enacted with a couple of tenancies we manage. We have raised these issue with both support and our account manager, and have been told this is by design. With the issues this has introduced, I doubt that this is by design and maybe this needs to be looked at by the development/QA team.
Issues include:
- Users can create new links to folders they have access to, but are no longer able to modify or delete an existing link that they have created
- Share links cannot be edited at all
- Share links are not created with the tenancy's default share settings
After some testing there appears to be only two ways that share links can now be deleted, but modifying remains a mystery..
- Only an admin can delete an existing link
- If a folder's permissions are set to "Team members who can edit" can they delete a link
This appears to introduce new issues..
- You can imagine that adding users as administrators introduces a huge security risk and privacy concerns
- The same can be said for changing a folder's permissions to "Team members who can edit", as there is now a loss of oversight to folder members at the time of change
The above changes still do not resolve the issue of share links not being able to be edited. Whether an expiration date is needed, a password, or disabling downloads.
Is this an issue that is known to the team at Dropbox and being actively worked on?
I understand that rolling this change back is now likely impossible, nor feasible given this is a change that is inevitable, but is there the option to include granular user permissions? For example, introducing a new user role specifically designed for managing share links, or creating a new area in Dropbox for managing all existing & new share links?
Ideally, fixing the issue to allow users to be able to modify and delete the links that have been created, either by them or not, if they have edit access to a folder is the goal.
Thanks
Walter
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHey megamunch - thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this with us and I appreciate the details you provided too.
I just wanted to mention that your initial points are outlined in this Help Center article.
When it comes to the tests you ran, can you please provide some additional information?
Are you trying to delete and edit shared links that you, as an admin, created or links that were created by other team members? Or are the team members having issues with this when they're not admins?
Hi Walter ,
A user cannot modify or delete links they created on a team folder, they can only create a link and Dropbox gives it settings which are not aligned with tenancy settings.
As admins we find that we can delete links, but we (and the users) cannot modify links.
The only partial workaround that we have is our users must contact us (admins) to delete an existing link so a new one can be created or to get the link to "expire".
