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Wrong shared folder owner, how to change it?

Hello,

I am new in the forum (not to Dropbox 😉 ) and have noticed a strange phenomenon: In my Dropbox [personal information removed per the Community's Guidelines] I have added my father - 99 years old! - as a member, so that he could download a movie made by me. Now he is shown as owner of the box and i am only rw user. Unfortunately I know only one password used by him , and this one does not work for login with his mail address. How can I make me owner - or at least admin - again without killing the whole box?

sincerely

Peter

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Megan

Hi @Barbara 2022, welcome to our Community!

In order to change the owner on your shared folders/files you'd need the current owner, to follow the steps mentioned here.

That way, you can take ownership of the content that you need.

Let me know if you have any questions!

All comments

Megan

Hey @bssmusic, welcome to our Community!

Can you clarify if you're talking about shared folders, and specifically the owner of the folder, or if you're part of the team and you want to change the team's admin?

Can you also check if you're using an individual plan, or a Business one?

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there.

bssmusic

Hello Megan,

sorry for my late Answer, but I had to work this weekend (I am one of these people who work, when others celebrate ). We talk indeed about a Folder I have opened to my father, Ernst Baumgartner, so that he could share some movies. To my surprise he is now owner of the folder, and I am only user with working rights.

BTW: User ID 1537770

Any ideas?

Megan

Thanks for clarifying, @bssmusic.

Even though you didn't mention the plan of the account, am I to assume that you have two individual accounts?

If your father is the owner of a shared folder, the only one able to change and pass ownership to you, would be him, from his account.

Provided you have some trouble when trying to log into the account, then you can download the content, and create a new shared folder on your end.

Barbara 2022

Hello, I have a Dropbox account and I’ve allowed one person to share a file with me. However, the account shows that I am not the owner. It shows that the person I allowed access is the owner. Please tell me how to fix this? Thank you.

Megan

Hi @Barbara 2022, welcome to our Community!

In order to change the owner on your shared folders/files you'd need the current owner, to follow the steps mentioned here.

That way, you can take ownership of the content that you need.

Let me know if you have any questions!

erigo

Ownership of one of our folders (a folder we share with our clients) has been given to one of our clients??? i.e. we no longer own the folder.

Firstly, none of our team know how to do this so its either been done by accident or its a system glitch???

The client who now owns the folder, no longer works at the organisation so their email (that owns the folder) is null and void.

Folder name: 1 -Erigo MAC IP - RESIDENTIAL - 2021
Here is a screenshot of the new owner who is outside of our organisation:

Screenshot 2023-08-16 131620edit.jpg

Can you please investigate how this has happened so we know how to avoid this issue in the future?

For security purposes, we will be creating a new folder (with a like name) and re-sharing with all the affected clients.

Thank you,

Lisa.

Hannah

Hey @erigo, thanks for taking the time to post to our Community.

Only the owner of a shared folder can pass the ownership to another member, which means that the previous owner did it somehow and only the current owner can change it back.

I'm afraid we also don't have access to any info on how or why this might have happened.

The best thing to do right now, if you can't access the owner's account, is what you've already done; create a new folder, move the contents in the new one and then share it.

Charles B

I'm the owner of a shared folder. Don't know how this happened, I didn't create the folder. I need to transfer ownership, but the folder settings menu doesn't offer that. I also don't have an Admin Console on my home screen.

I'm a Basic (free) user - could I need to upgrade to get this done?

Thanks

Megan

Hi there, @Charles B, let's jump right into this!

Is it possible that the old owner passed ownership of said folder to you? Just to make sure we're on the same page, are these the steps you follow on your end?

Can you send me some screenshots of what you see when you follow the steps above? Just make sure none of your personal info is shown there.

Keep me posted!

Charles B

Thanks very much but I've sorted it out.