Download links take me to my homepage

Hi Jo Alex Valleyrat Products - thanks for using Dropbox and welcome to the Community!

Can you please clarify if you were logged into your Dropbox account when you tried to access those links to your files?

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

Hi Walter

Good question, and although I cannot recall exactly, it is very likely that I was. I tested one of the links again just now, making sure that I was logged out of Dropbox. However, it brought up a log-in page and then took me to my Dropbox home page again. Thinking about it, would it be recognizing my IP address, and therefor taking me to my home page?

Did you log into your Dropbox account when you accessed the link or not Jo Alex Valleyrat Products? 

I did, yes. It was the only way to proceed, and I did it just to see what happens.

In that case, I'd suggest trying it out on an incognito window without signing into your Dropbox account Jo Alex Valleyrat Products 

When you're logged into your account, it's normal that you can navigate your files and see your homepage. 

Okay, thanks Walter. I'll test one of the links on somebody else's laptop and see what happens. I'll get back to you.

Jo Alex Valleyrat Products wrote:

I'll test one of the links on somebody else's laptop and see what happens.

You can just open an Incognito window (Chrome) or private browsing window (Edge, Firefox, others) and test the link yourself. That ensures you're not signed in.

Also, remember that you can't just copy the link to a file from the address bar in your browser. That would be unique to your account only. You need to generate a shared link to the file you're offering for download.

Hi Walter

This has now opened a can of worms! Okay, I tested one of the links from a different laptop, and got the login page. I signed in under one of my other Gmail accounts, but then it takes me to your plans and wants me to subscribe. You can probably see that in the meantime Rich also offered some input, so I tested his suggestion. I noticed that the file (or in this case, folder) link provided by the link icon under 'All Files' is different from the link provided when clicking on the 'Shared' icon. I tested that link as well, and it again takes me to the login page, where I again signed in under a different Gmail account. I then got the message that I do not have access to the content, and must request access from the owner - which is me, under my Dropbox subscription ID. I proceeded to request access, which came through on my other (Dropbox) Gmail account. However: it states that approving access will grant the other party access and ability to edit the folder in question. Whoa! That's not the idea behind all this! Did I understand incorrectly how this whole procedure works and is it in fact a viable way of making oversized files available to buyers on Etsy? As I understood it, digital files that exceeds Etsy's 20MB file limit can be placed on Dropbox (or Google files) and on purchasing the listing on Etsy, the buyer gets a PDF with the Dropbox link which he then clicks on and gets access to ONLY that file/folder.

Is this all how it works or not?

Jo Alex Valleyrat Products wrote:

That's not the idea behind all this! Did I understand incorrectly how this whole procedure works and is it in fact a viable way of making oversized files available to buyers on Etsy?

You would need to talk to Etsy on how it's supposed to work on their end. Dropbox just provides you with a link to the content. How that link is used or presented to a user is up to you or the service where you're using the link.

Jo Alex Valleyrat Products wrote:

However: it states that approving access will grant the other party access and ability to edit the folder in question. Whoa! That's not the idea behind all this!

If someone requests access to a file or folder, yes, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. They're requesting edit access with a specific account. If that's not the intent, then you need to make sure you're creating a view-only link. A person does not need to sign in to an account, even if prompted to do so, to access a view-only link. Dropbox may offer them the option to sign in (to make saving the file to their own account easier) but it's usually not required and the sign in window can be closed to continue to the file.