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How can I share folders with a non-team member without adding them to my team?
How can I share a folder with an individual without them being added as a member to our organizations Dropbox account? I want to be able to share a folder without them being added to our team as we would then have to pay for eavh folder shared.
Thanks Rich. Dropbox support just helped me work this out. I shared the folder as normal, but apparently the way Dropbox formats emails to the recipients (or some part of the "accepting the share" process) encourages the recipient to click "join this team" (or something similar). So I end up getting an email saying "XYZ wants to join your team"; and when I go to the admin console, it says "invite pending review; you need one additional licence". It's very misleading, making me think I need to add a new licence so that the sharee can view the shared folder.
I've had this with other clients whom I send public links to (rather than try to share a folder with); I end up getting emails saying they want to join my team. So Dropbox Support brought my attention to the feature that lets you turn it off:
- Open this page:
https://www.dropbox.com/team/admin/settings/membership_approval. - Turn off the ''Coworkers can ask to join your team'' option.
Halleluiah!
- Open this page:
16 Replies
- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi yfranco, thanks for messaging the Community!
You can share folders by following these steps.
You might need to amend your team's sharing settings to allow non-team members to add shared folders.
If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.
It is absolutely bonkers how difficult it is to do this. I'm a PhD and I can't decipher those instructions. Isn't this Dropbox's core function? When and WHY did this become so hard?
- Rich
Super User II
HypotheticalJason wrote:
It is absolutely bonkers how difficult it is to do this. I'm a PhD and I can't decipher those instructions. Isn't this Dropbox's core function? When and WHY did this become so hard?
Perhaps if you explained the issue you're having someone might be able to provide assistance.
And remember, if you're trying to share outside of your Business team and you're unable to do so, the team admin may have that ability disabled for the team. If you're the team admin, you can modify these settings.
Hi Jay, I have the same request as the original post. Your link on how to share folders doesn't seem to elaborate on how to do so without triggering the requirement to add the sharee as a paid team member. If it's not possible, it would be good to get that clarified.
- Rich
Your link on how to share folders doesn't seem to elaborate on how to do so without triggering the requirement to add the sharee as a paid team member.
That's because the simple act of sharing a folder doesn't add the person as a paid team member. The person would need to be invited as a team member for that to happen.
If you're not able to invite an external user to a shared folder that's in a Team account, then the team admin might have that ability disabled in the team's sharing settings.
Thanks Rich. Dropbox support just helped me work this out. I shared the folder as normal, but apparently the way Dropbox formats emails to the recipients (or some part of the "accepting the share" process) encourages the recipient to click "join this team" (or something similar). So I end up getting an email saying "XYZ wants to join your team"; and when I go to the admin console, it says "invite pending review; you need one additional licence". It's very misleading, making me think I need to add a new licence so that the sharee can view the shared folder.
I've had this with other clients whom I send public links to (rather than try to share a folder with); I end up getting emails saying they want to join my team. So Dropbox Support brought my attention to the feature that lets you turn it off:
- Open this page:
https://www.dropbox.com/team/admin/settings/membership_approval. - Turn off the ''Coworkers can ask to join your team'' option.
Halleluiah!
- Open this page:
Hi all,
I keep having same issue with not being able to share a subdirectory in a Team folder to an external person.
I have admin console/settings/sharing/direct sharing/sharing externally set to 'On (anyone)'.
However, the folder itself shows that folder membership is restricted to team members only (see below) and the dropdown is greyed out - i cannot change it. So no matter what i do, i cannot add an external users email address to the folder as it always gives me the error 'this email isn't in your team'.
How do i change this greyed-out setting?
Much appreciate any help here - i seem to be going around in circles with whatever i find online or in the dropbox help.
Koen- Hannah
Hi Hannah,
Thank you for taking interest in my issue. Yes - it is from the admin console / content page.
Very odd, and external sharing is enabled already...
Koen- Hannah
I see, thanks for the update, Koen, pretty odd indeed.
Would you mind sending me a screenshot of your sharing settings in the admin console?
Also, if you try sharing the folder from the all files page instead, do you get the same behavior?
