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DarrenSetlow's avatar
DarrenSetlow
New member | Level 2
2 months ago

The recipients of my shared folders are moving files out of them. How can I stop that?

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Question or Issue
I provide image files to my clients by inviting them to DropBox folders I create for their specific company within my single user account. Often there are several contacts at one firm that all need access to the files. I set all permissions to View. Often clients do not realize that when they are clicking and dragging folders and image files they are in fact moving them out of the DropBox folder.  How can I prevent this automatic click and drag move of files? Or, how can I tell when this happens so I can be more proactive in restoring these files and educating clients again about being aware of this issue? This is an incredibly tedious and frustrating quirk of DropBox. 

Thanks for any insights. 

Darren 

1 Reply

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  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
    2 months ago
    DarrenSetlow wrote:

    How can I prevent this automatic click and drag move of files?

    I'm assuming their working within the Dropbox folder in Explorer or Finder, directly on their computer. If that's the case, you can't prevent that. Typically, Dragging a file to another location on the same drive will result in a move, and dragging a file to a location on a different drive results in a copy. This functionality is controlled by the operating system, not Dropbox.

    DarrenSetlow wrote:

    I set all permissions to View.

    If they don't have edit permissions to the folders, they wouldn't be able to delete any files in the folder, which is what would happen if they had edit access and tried to drag a file to a new location.

    Can you provide the exact steps you took to share the folder? Provide screenshots of the current settings if you can, being sure to mask any private information.

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