Child Item

Can't Share Links with Edit Rights

Hi,

I want to share a folder on my Dropbox with someone outside of my team. I am using an admin account which is part of a Business Dropbox account. I can create a read-only link but when I go onto Settings there is no way to change the permissions granted by the link. Am I doing something wrong?

Our relevant Sharing settings are:

Sharing externally -> On

Sharing links externally -> On

Default shared link privacy -> Anyone

Thank you,

Diana

Find more posts tagged with

Shared Links

Edit

Developer

Promoted

Accepted answers

Jay

Hi @Diana28, thanks for posting today.

Shared links can have edit privileges for Google Docs and Microsoft files.

The image you have there is for an Excel file, which is why there's a link to allow users to edit the file itself.

Any other file would not have this permission, so team folders can't be edited the same way, you'd need to share it directly with people on your team in order for them to add it to their Dropbox account and then be able to edit it.

If you need any more details, feel free to message back!

All comments

Здравко

@Diana28 wrote:
...
I want to share a folder on my Dropbox with someone outside of my team. I am using an admin account which is part of a Business Dropbox account. I can create a read-only link but when I go onto Settings there is no way to change the permissions granted by the link. ...

Hi @Diana28,

🙂 You have to clarify to yourself what exactly you want to do! Link, either to file or folder, is always read only. It can't be used for change the content the link point to. There are 2 ways to let someone outside your team to add changes. If you want to use links, together with the share link you can provide a request link. 😉 So when particular file gets received (using shared link) and edited, it could get back with the request. If you want to let edit access to original file you have to use file/folder share not a shared link! There you can select for particular share to be read only or not. Disadvantage, sometimes, could be the need recipient to have enough free space to accept the share. You can choose what best match your needs.

Hope this helps.

Diana28

Hello! Thanks for the advice, although I am not sure that I understand. You say that link is always read-only. But when I am in my personal folder, I can create edit links:

Captura de Pantalla 2021-02-19 a les 9.34.43.png

As you can see, here I have set that anyone with the link can edit the content. And when I go into the settings option, I get three tabs. One for email invitation, one for edit link, and one for viewing link:

Captura de Pantalla 2021-02-19 a les 9.38.45.png

However, when I try the same from a team folder this option does not exist. The link is read only and I can only invite people to edit through email invitation.

Is that something that works like this for all Business accounts?

Здравко

Hi @Diana28,

Business account or not, when you share something "outside", links (if they are not request links) are always read only. 🤷 That's it.

The last change how the sharing tools look like predisposes such confusions, unfortunately. Some time ago, link receiving and file/folder share was 2 completely independent ways (clearly distinguishing settings for links and shares), so very small chance for mistake. Currently, as could be seen on your first screenshot, both types of settings are combined in a single view and it's very easy to mess them. Most probably you are selecting "can edit" there and rely it apply to the link; there is no way to make distinction that this is only applied to share (not link) if such is created, i.e. not to create/copy link, but to fill email and share file/folder. 🤷 Again, that's it.

Would be fine if view clearly represent what setting to what target applies, but it's not. Let's hope this "experiment" be corrected by Dropbox, either return previous view or create more intuitive.

Hope this clarifies matter.

PS: By the way, when you share the same link inside your team, recipient have access to the file/folder in different context than the context of recipient outside the team! The settings you are representing on your second screenshot are applicable within the team. 😉

@Diana28 wrote:
...
However, when I try the same from a team folder this option does not exist. The link is read only and I can only invite people to edit through email invitation.
...

What would be the meaning "for a team folder" (something shared by the team) to have edit control when somebody create link? 🧐🤔 I have no idea! 🙂 Can you explain me?

That what you refer as "email invitation" is the actual file/folder share. 😉

Jay

Diana28

aha! now I see the pattern. Thanks!

Jay

Glad to have helped out, @Diana28!

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Enjoy your week ahead!

mikeyonaboat

@Здравко wrote:
What would be the meaning "for a team folder" (something shared by the team) to have edit control when somebody create link? 🧐🤔 I have no idea! 🙂Can you explain me?

Hi @Здравко

I realize this is very belated, but I wanted to answer your question because I'm facing this issue at the moment! There are several use cases where I need edit access to folders. For example, I have a folder with lots of files that need to be organized. I need to give someone access so they can organize all the the files in the folder, move them around, rename them, create new folders, etc... Pretty common scenario - such as photographers looking to sort through photos, corporate documents to be categorized, etc...

Then, lots of reasons to give them just a link instead of truly "sharing" the folder - the user doesn't have a Dropbox account, or they don't have enough space in their Dropbox account for the folder to be shared, it's a one-time contractor project so I just want to use an expiring link to do the job.

////

I just called Dropbox support and they confirmed that edit capability does not exist for folder link shares. They only exist for file link shares. Hope this feature can be added because of all the use cases above!

Здравко

@mikeyonaboat wrote:
...
Then, lots of reasons to give them just a link instead of truly "sharing" the folder - the user doesn't have a Dropbox account, or they don't have enough space in their Dropbox account for the folder to be shared, it's a one-time contractor project so I just want to use an expiring link to do the job.
...

Hi @mikeyonaboat,

I understand what you mean and fully agree with what you are asking for as idea. What you can't understand (seems) you are mixing different things. As a technical solution there is NOT need anything additional! Involving links will make the things even harder and difficult. As you mentioned some of your parties "don't have enough space in their Dropbox account". This is NOT a technical issue or need for new features, but company politics! 🤷 Yes, exactly company politics. Dropbox is trying to rise up incomes as forcing users overpay for the storage. You have your storage and other users (paying or not) you share with have to pay too for the same storage (as a something counted to their storage capacity). Dropbox tries excuse this with storage stacking protection. 😁 Seems many people (enough) believe in this. So, why Dropbox will invest additional money to give you workaround for something they try restrict? 🤔🤦 Is this sounding consistent?

There are other competitors which don't exploit their size and force you overpay. If you want to be more free, look around and find out offer that matches your needs. 😉 Storage stacking protection can be performed without overpay (as many others are doing it)!

@mikeyonaboat wrote:
... Hope this feature can be added because of all the use cases above!

Do you still believe this will happen? Better, don't rely. This will never happen while people Dropbox rely on are just... waiting! That's it.