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Justin P.2's avatar
Justin P.2
Collaborator | Level 10
8 years ago
Solved

Is there a way to choose whether .zip files are previewing on the Dropbox website?

I'm a long time Dropbox user and today I went to check if some older links were still active that I had sent to a cleint.  Most of the files are send out are zipped for various reasons.    It ...
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  • Jane's avatar
    Jane
    8 years ago
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how this functionality change has impacted your workflow MRMJP, I’d happily follow-up with you on this discussion & I hope my post finds you well! 
     
    You’re absolutely right when it comes to this recent feature implementation, therefore at the moment when previewing an archive file, you can navigate through the archive file structure and preview individual files within the archive. Previously, compressed files (such as .zip & .rar) couldn’t be viewed on the web interface & in case you had received (or sent) a shared link containing this filetype, you’d (or the recipient would) have to download them locally, in order to view the contents. 
     
    That all being said, I appreciate the time you’ve devoted in writing us the specifics of how this alteration has worked for you so far & for that reason I’ve made sure to transfer your comments up the ladder for future reference. 
     
    In any event, please let me know here if you have any more thoughts or questions & I’ll do my best to check back with you. Wishing you a fruitful May & a wonderful rest of the day ahead! 
Jane's avatar
Jane
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
7 years ago
Hello again to all following this conversation & apologies for the tardy reply on my end. Since this discussion has remained active for quite some time, I understand that you’d need a viable & practical resolution at this point. For that reason, I’ve collected all your thoughts on my report internally, as I see that this change hasn’t been ideal to you & we aim to provide all Dropbox users the best experience possible.  
 
Now, from what I gather after reviewing everything you’ve posted us once again, it’s my understanding that you’d rather have the recipient download your entire compressed folder from a shared link without viewing the entire file structure. That said, I discussed your feedback &/or possible workarounds internally & our team specialists recommend either of the following:
 
đŸ”ș Instead of creating a shared link đŸ”— directly to the .zip/.rar file, you could place that file inside of a folder and send a shared link to the folder instead of the file. 
đŸ”ș ó €­ó €­You could also make the .zip file itself password protected 🔐, as that would prevent the recipients from previewing the contents of the file and will tell them to download the .zip file instead. 
 
This is of course merely our suggestions on how you could go about on this matter. Would you mind giving our recommendations a go whenever you find some spare time & let us know of any additional thoughts & /or questions &/ or feedback? Thanks & I’m looking forward to hearing back from you! 
  • Peter-Paul B.'s avatar
    Peter-Paul B.
    Helpful | Level 6
    7 years ago

    I work with projects and sent download links. The image above is an example of a project.This project contains 133x download links (and counting).

    The suggestions as described by Jane won't work for me. A shared folder is for a set of persons/customers and for me the persons will change: who needs what in the project. I set the persons /customers who need the download by e-mail.

    The next suggestion for password protect gives questions from customes like: Whats the password? Also not an option for me

    Now I manually change download links 0 to 1 but I prefer that Dropbox should that automatically for me.

    Hopefully you can do something with this message and have a nice day.

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