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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 want to share a parent it gives an error message : This folder can only be shared as a link because it contains a shared folder. I think this issue need to be fixed.

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Walter

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.

Kzoppo

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

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Walter

Hey there @spaul - sorry to hear about this.

Moreover, currently, there's no way to share a folder that already contains a shared folder.

Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there. Thank you.

Kzoppo

I have this same problem, I went to the folder's shared settings and removed the person the folder was shared with. When I looke at it in the parent folder it says I am the only member but the icon still has the two people.

Kzoppo

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

avcs

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

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.

avcs

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!

Julien Chabe

Works! Jeez, Dropbox's support is pretty incompetent.

hzaher

I just read this discussion that is a year old because I was looking for a solution to the same problem described there: i.e., even if I remove the shared persons of a folder, and click on the unshare folder link, the 2 little people icon on the folder still persists.

It appears that this problem is solved just by opening and closing the folder after unsharing it. As soon as you open and close it, the 2 little people icon disappears.

TB00

Dropbox, @avcs summarizes this issue perfectly, yet is still appears not to be fixed. I have exactly the same issue, working every day with cotractors and it's a huge security risk not being able to see which folders I haven't yet unshared with external members of my team. Your solution of copying and deleting folders and extremely laborious and time consuming.

Please fix this important issue soon!

Michelle D.17

I can't believe this is still not fixed! When I log into Dropbox in a browser and the click on Shared (left-side menu) I get a very long list of folders that still show the shared-icon on them even though I have tried to remove sharing for all of them several times! I need these to be NOT shared and I can't be secure that they aren't any longer as long as your little two-person-icon is still on them!

Sooooo, frustrating!!!

Daphne

Thanks for joining the thread here @Michelle D.17!

You'll need to fully unshare the folder with the steps outlined here, under the "How to unshare a folder" section.

If you tried those steps already, can you let me know what happens when you click the unshare option?

TB00

Hi Daphne,

On a Mac, the folder in the desktop app still shows the folder with a small icon inside (in my case its a building) even after it's been unshared. This makes it impossible to know which folders have been unshared. I have thousands of project folders and cannot go through individual on the web app to check. It's a real security risk and needs to be sorted please!

Thank you

Daphne

If it's showing a building icon, this means that this is a team folder rather than a shared folder @TB00.

A team folder works differently to a shared folder, as it allows the subfolders to have different permissions.

To clarify, are you an admin on a business team, or a member of a team?

TB00

Hi - apologies for the confusion. I'm an admin of a business team. So I get the building icon when I share the folder with contractors I'm working with. When I remove them I'm still left with the building icon. So there seems to be no way if me knowing which folders are still shared with external contractors and which aren't. Am I just using it incorrectly in the first place? Thanks

TB00

P.S. I assumed it was a Shared folder because I used the "Share Folder" action to share it.

Jay

Hi @TB00, was this folder originally a team folder, or a private folder on your account?

TB00

Hi Jay - a Team folder, I guess (ie it's not in my personal box). Once I share a folder with associate contractors (who are not Team members) then the building icon appears. Once I remove those members (which I now consider 'unshared') , the building icon is still present and can't be removed. Therefore I can't easily tell which folders need to be 'unshared'. Thanks

Walter

Hey @TB00; sorry to jump in here, but can you send us a screenshot of how this looks like on your end so that we can have a visual too?

TB00

Hi Walter - attached is a screen grab sample from my finder. Folders with the icon on are ones that I have shared with associates (which is when the icon appears) and the ones without are folders that I haven't shared with anyone outside of my Team. Thanks

Screenshot 2021-03-21 at 23.26.07.png

Michelle D.17

Thank you for the link. As I 'shared' in the feedback for those instructions I find these to be cumbersome and not intuitive.

If I wanted to remove part of a group on a shared folder, the instructions to Remove a Member(s) make sense. However if I want to Unshare a Folder I should not have to *also* Remove a Member(s). Unshare literally means to NOT share something and if I want to Unshare a Folder it should be a simple, one-step-process.

Yes, this did help me Unshare a number of folders but it took far too long as I had already been through the process of removing the members from sharing a long time ago.

CarlGm

I faced the same issue: When removing by clicking on the link line underneath the folder name and removing all persons, the folder is still somehow tagged/ blocked as "shared" (showing people still on the folder icon). Only when you follow the 3 steps indicated above by my appreciated user colleague - going via settings and clicking on the "stop sharing" dropbox is really stopping the sharing function.

Also, when deleting a folder, the sharing function is still activated, it should be deleted, too.

Finally after 1 hour trouble shooting, dropbox still does not allow to share the parent folder, even all subfolder sharing is deleted.

I had to create a new parent folder and then it worked 🙂

Conclusion: very buggy - dropbox should fix this - no good value for the money - Onedrive comes for free with Windows license.

dfscott12

The option to unshare a folder does not show up in my settings tab. Is there another way to access this or allow the unshare option to show up?

Megan

Hi @dfscott12, let's see what we can find on this!

Can you send me a screenshot of what you see on your end, when you try to access your settings tab?

Keep me posted!

dfscott12

Sure, see below. Thanks! dropbox settings.png

Jay

Hi @dfscott12, it looks like this isn't a shared folder, could it be part of a shared folder itself? What icon is in the folder when viewing from the site?

dfscott12

Yes, I removed the shared participants but it is still showing up with the shared icon on the folder. Inside the this folder I have other unshared shared folders that do the same thing. The problem is I need to share a different folder but it won’t let me because it thinks I have more than 10 shared folders in the master.

Mark

Hi @dfscott12

When you removed the people from the share did you also remove yourself? That step is needed to actually 'close' the share - if you are still in the folder as a shared user even if nobody else is the system treats it as shared.

wn_024

Just after I posted this I found the solution so Dropbox won't see the folder as shared anymore.
1. Click on the Share button for the folder
2. Go to the settings icon
3. Bottom left, you have the option to unshare folder

regarding the last step 3 - I can't find the option to 'unshare folder', can you help thanks

Jay

Hi @wn_024, what options do you get when you view the share options?