File locking is a handy little feature available to customers on Dropbox Professional, Education, Essentials, Standard, Business, Advanced, Business Plus, and Enterprise plans. This means you can create a single source of truth document, prevent duplication or unauthorized edits.
Well, once a file is locked, anyone with access to the file can still view, comment on, and share a link to the file. Only the person who locked the file can edit and unlock the file.
If you need to edit a locked file, you can request that the file be unlocked by clicking Ask to Unlock in the window that appears when you attempt to open the file. Or, you can make a copy of the locked file—however, any changes made to the copy will not be reflected in the original file once it’s unlocked.
- Right-click the file you’d like to lock or unlock in the Dropbox App, or if you’re using Dropbox.com, hover over the name of the file and click "…" (ellipsis) on the right
- Click Lock Editing or Unlock Editing.
