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Forum Discussion
JOfE
5 years agoExperienced | Level 11
Folder showing a Share Icon
Why do some folders in Dropbox.com show a sharing icon when the folder is not shared? I am refering to the sharing icon visible on dropbox.com not on the computer version. See the screenshot.
- Hey JOfE!
Could you just check for me, if you select one of these folders and choose the "Share" option, and then click the gear icon in the top right corner, do you see an option to "Unshare folder" in the bottom left of the window?
24 Replies
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- JOfE5 years agoExperienced | Level 11
I actually think these folders were originally created in a TEAM folder and then at later date moved out to a private folder.
This 'bug' creates a few problems for a business team moving shared files in this way.
We are literally going through thousands of folders and finding hundreds of 'shared' folders like this in our account. We are able to find these problem folders only by syncing the entire business account to a drive. We can pinpoint the problem folders only by their larger than normal file size. Some are buried deep in video file bundles.
A few months ago we notice that some of our dropbox files were not showing ZERO file numbers. We created a ticket with Dropbox tech support to address this issue. It has been 2 months of back and forth and no solution.
Your insight Daphne that the folders are somehow 'shared' and showing a shared icon, I believe, is the key to that problem. We notice that 'unsharing' an unshared folder resulted in the file size being to reset to zero. So good for you @Daphne. You solved a problem the techs could not.
I also noticed you can "unshare" any individual file in Dropbox in the way you described (Share, top-right gear icon, bottom left "unshare") ad Infinitum.
None of us here are impressed by this bug in dropbox and the work it has created for us.
We are also finding files that show a 'shared icon' but are apparently shared with no one.
Happily, your fix Daphne works on these stranded folders also.
- Daphne5 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Apologies for the inconvenience you're having with this JOfE.
Would you mind sharing the ticket number (eg. #1234567) for your case with our Support team with me, so that I can check on this from my side?
Also, in the meantime, perhaps checking from your share tab here to locate the "shared" folders will help with this.
If you're not sure what/where the folder is, you can click the name to open it in another tab, so you can see the contents and full folder path.
From there you can also click the "..." menu, where you'll see the "Share" option to be able to unshare the folder directly from there too. - JOfE5 years agoExperienced | Level 11
Thank you for the tip as to where we can find all our shared folders. As a business account, this will take some time.
It is ticket number #11802005. It was created 2 months ago with messages back and forth with absolutely no progress. I had not received a reply on the ticket for the last 6 days. Yesterday I copied this thread to the ticket. No response.
- AmyTYM5 years agoHelpful | Level 6
I am a member of @John's business account. I remember that these folders were team folders. Problems arose when we moved files out of teams folders to archive them. This is my guess about where these sharing issues came form.
We have to unshared these folders one by one. I feel in am working with cloud sharing 101. A simple features like being able to 'unshare' multiple folders would be nice. Or removing 'unshare' option from files that are not shared would be something I'd have removed day one. Attention to details Dropbox! : )
- JOfE5 years agoExperienced | Level 11
AmyTYM Get back to work 😉
- danielpassos3 years agoExplorer | Level 3
I have the same problem and I did not find any unshare folder option
- Hannah3 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey danielpassos, have you checked the steps to unshare a folder here?
- danielpassos3 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Yes, I did. My folder is not shared and I have no other folder inside. I don't see the Unshare folder option
- Hannah3 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Can you send us a screenshot of what you see when you click on the "share" icon, Daniel?
Just make sure to hide any personal info, like email addresses.
- danielpassos3 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Share
Setting Icon on Share screen
App Version (Mac OS)
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