Can we remove the owner of a shared folder that contains sensitive data?

Question

I have a situation where a client's Dropbox has an owner that we needed to downgrade to a member, which we did last week. Today, I discovered a subfolder containing sensitive business information that somehow was created by this former owner, and I need to remove them entirely from this folder, which I cannot do since my client is shown as a member of this folder, and he owns the Dropbox. I cannot change the permission of the owner that needs removed.

I have questions:

Can the Dropbox owner remove this individual from this subfolder?

If not, can we delete the files within without this subfolder owner receiving notification?

If this owner receives notification, would they be allowed to recover the files deleted?

(The files were added to this folder by this owner in 2021 and 2022 and they do not need to see these files again)

It's a tricky situation, but needs resolved. Any suggestions? TIA

Nancy · Answer

It was my pleasure, @yankeeinchatt! I’m glad you were able to sort this out in the end.

Don’t hesitate to ping me, if you need something else.

yankeeinchatt · Answer

Hi Nancy - Thank you for your response! It turns out that my client (owner of the Dropbox) had a convo with the DB subfolder owner, and she had no idea about any of it, so, I deleted the entire subfolder for my client. I cannot think of how a subfolder can be created without an subfolder owner doing it, but it's resolved. Thank you for the insight and for the direction - I appreciate the quick response!

Yankeeinchatt

Nancy · Answer

Welcome to our forum, @yankeeinchatt! Let’s have a look.

To clarify, is your client part of a Business team, and if yes, was the owner that you mention an admin previously?

Do you mind sending over a screenshot of the folder’s sharing permissions (while hiding the names/emails of its members)? Is the owner of the folder still an active part of the Business team?

In general, when a user owns a shared folder, then they’ll receive notification when files are deleted from it, and if the files have been removed within their file recovery window, they should be able to recover them, as well.

However, if your client is an admin on the team, they may be able to permanently delete those files via their Admin Console > Content tab.

Let me know if this helps.