What does the limit on shared folders mean?

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Mark wrote:

As you are not the owner you cannot add/remove people.

This is clearly not the case.  I have already removed 3 people from the access list.

Ok IMCZug, follows one little strange part. Let's find out all your shared folders. Open this page. Click on "Get Token" button. Finally click "Submit Call" button. How many entries are in the result? 🤔 If there isn't something private inside, can you post the resulted text (inside the field labeled "Response")?

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IMCZug wrote:

...  Our “shared folder list” lists *only one* shared folder: our top-level folder. ...

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In such a case there should be just one entry. 🤫

Let's see.

Hi IMCZug, I hope you're doing well!

If you were able to remove people from the folder, it seems you have editing access to it. 

As for the owner, you wouldn't be able to remove the existing one as a member to this folder. The only person able to pass ownership to someone else, would be the owner himself. 

It sounds like you want to share the folder with more people, right? Have you tried these steps? 

Let me know! 

Thanks for responding.  The "Response" field contents were quite long, but I didn't find a way to attach them here as a file, so I tried to embed them in a spoiler below.  I couldn't tell whether the URLs in the text were sensitive or no, so I censored them to be on the safe side.

Hi IMCZug,

I have no idea where you have looked before so you saw only one shared folder, but you have 12 shared folders in total. 8 of them are not mounted - "2020-12", "2019-12", "2019-08", "2019-02-07 AGM", "2019-01-26 Burns Night", "2018 Directory", "2017 Directory", and "Gottardino". Other 4 are mounted and you should be able see them in your folder tree. 3 of them are mounted in "/imcz team folder/events" - "2020-08-23 bbq", "2020-01-25 burns night", and "2022-01-29 burns night". One is mounted in your account root - "IMCZ Team Folder".

I don't know where unmounted folders originate from, but if they come from "/imcz team folder/events" formerly, 3+8 = 11 - something above the limit! 🤷 If you don't plain to use some of unmounted folders, just unshare them completely (Select "Unshare folder" from ellipsis menu associated to corresponding folders - those you didn't see before 😁 - take a look more carefully). Deleting a shared folder doesn't unshare it automatically! 😉

Hope this gives direction.

Thanks for your analysis.  Here is the screen where I see only one shared folder: 

I am hearing about "mounted" and "unmounted" folders here for the first time.  This isn't surprising, since I couldn't find any regular help articles about them.  The only mention I found was in the "DBX Sharing Guide" addressed to developers using the API (which I have used under your instruction for the first time today).  The folders you describe as "unmounted" are all folders I deleted (at least "Delete" is what I picked in the Dropbox UI) in an attempt to reduce the number of shared folders. If I understand you correctly, picking "Delete" didn't really delete them, it just unmounted them.

You suggest that I "unshare" the "unmounted" folders, but how can  a mere mortal like myself accomplish this, when they are not visible in my Dropbox UI?  What do you mean by "take a look more carefully"?  Where should I look?  Must I use the API for this, or is there some way for a non-developer to handle this?

P.S. I have now found the deleted folders under "Deleted files".  I don't find any way to unshare them there.  Can I just get rid of them with "Permanently delete", or do I have to:

1. Restore
2. Unshare
3. Delete
4. Permanently delete

IMCZug, you can do it in whatever is easiest way for you. In spite of you should be able do the same with just unshare it (as I have described). I should note here that you didn't follow my link! 👆 You're on different page (Recent, not Folders - see the screenshot again). 🙂 Be more careful!

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Здравко wrote:

IMCZug, you can do it in whatever is easiest way for you. In spite of you should be able do the same with just unshare it (as I have described). I should note here that you didn't follow my link! 👆 You're on different page (Recent, not Folders - see the screenshot again). 🙂 Be more careful!

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Thanks, but

1. The "Folders" tab looks the same as the "Recents" tab:
2. As previously reported, I cannot "just unshare it". The only options I have are "Restore" and "Permanently delete":
   
   That is why I asked whether I can just permanently delete these folders or must first restore and unshare them.

Thanks for your support.

Wow... 🤔 IMCZug, up to your last post I haven't idea that such a situation is even possible. Are you sure the two screenshots show the same account? 🤷 If so, that might be some new bug in Dropbox.

Shared folders (the first screenshot) should show all shared folders in your account (all 12 in particular case), without taking in account are they mounted or not. In your case no just unmounted are missing, but not all mounted are shown (3 of them are missing too)! I can't say anything more about, some Dropbox representative should assist, why this ever happens. I performed a test:

As you can see the unmounted folder is labeled "Not added to Dropbox". Using ellipsis menu, all possible shared folder operations are accessible:

In particular case "Add to Dropbox" (it appears while just hovering) and "Unshare folder".

About API, you said "I have used under your instruction for the first time", there's always some first time. 😉 That was the yours! Are you ready to continue? If so, in your previous result ("Response") all folders have their "shared_folder_id"s. As an example I will share the entry describing my "Test1" folder:

    {
      "access_type": {
        ".tag": "owner"
      },
      "is_inside_team_folder": false,
      "is_team_folder": false,
      "name": "Test1",
      "policy": {
        "acl_update_policy": {
          ".tag": "editors"
        },
        "shared_link_policy": {
          ".tag": "anyone"
        },
        "viewer_info_policy": {
          ".tag": "enabled"
        }
      },
      "preview_url": "https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/qbr0oeqz8arcgti2vr6h0/h?dl=0",
      "shared_folder_id": "2302118193", //\\<=== Take a look here!!!
      "time_invited": "2021-12-06T13:29:10Z",
      "access_inheritance": {
        ".tag": "inherit"
      }
    },

Use those, listed by you, associated to the folders you want to unshare. Get in following page. Again press the "Get token" button, to be able do something. Next put in field "shared_folder_id" that id associated to someone of the folders you want to unshare (I put there 2302118193). Press "Submit call" too. The call result will come back immediately, but actual unshare may take some time (sometimes like a minute)! I'm saying this just to avoid confusion. You don't need to wait unshare be finalized. Just put next shared folder ID (for the next folder you want to unshare) and press "Submit call" again. Repeat the same for all folders you want to unshare. At the end, wait for a minute and check what's the state (call again shared folder listing). Are there now only folders you really want shared? 😉 Does the error message, topic of this discussion, appear again?

Hope this can help.

Thanks! Using the API to unshare all of the folders except the one I wanted to share to additional users eliminated the error message I reported in my OP.

However, when I try to share that folder using "Share with Dropbox":

Dropbox only offers to share a link:

which is not what I want: I want the recipient to have to be *logged in* to Dropbox in order to access the contents. I do not want a link floating around which empowers anyone having it to view (or worse) edit the folder contents.

What is weirder: after I canceled out of the above-described attempt to share this folder, subsequent attempts to share it produce the error message:

"There was a problem completing this request."

Must I also use the API to share this folder?

P.S. Just out of curiosity, I reran "list_folders", with the result that all 12 of the previously listed folders still showed up with a "shared_folder_id":

The "unshare_folder" calls had yielded the following responses:

How long should these jobs take to finish?