Keeping my family files and my clients' files separate

[deegriswold]

Grateful for any help.

I used to have a dropbox account that I used exclusively to share files with my cousins. Simple, non-dramatic, non-proprietary. Grandma's immigration papers. Wedding photos.

Then my clients-I have no idea how or why or how they even knew I had a dropbox account or how to access it-started dropping proprietary, top-secret, private files in there and sending me an e-mail to tell me they had done so.

First thing I did was change the password so my scores of cousins couldn't possibly get into my clients' proprietary files.

So how do I let my cousins see the family files and make sure that they don't see my clients' proprietary files? I need an absolutely foolproof solution. Even though my clients dumped stuff in there without my foreknowledge or permission, I am responsible for keeping the stuff confidential.

I need an expert. Thank you for any thoughts!

BTW, I thought about moving the "family" files to another account, but the job is somewhere between daunting and impossible. We are talking 20+ years of stuff.

Thank you!

[Hannah]

Hey @deegriswold, thanks for posting your question on our Community!

When it comes to sharing folders, when you have a personal account, unless your clients' files are shared with your cousins as well, they will not be accessed by them.

Any users, or folder members, can access files you manually share with them.

If your clients shared these files with you, they can only be accessed by you.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[deegriswold]

and thanks to Hannah for her response. Now I know it can be done.

Some of us didn't grow up with computers. Every platform has its own set of - if you will forgive me - quirks.

I am confident now that I can keep the different sets of documents separate, but am still confused about the mechanics.

Should I establish 1 folder for family documents and move my gazillion documents into that?

How do I give my cousins permission to view them without giving them permission to view my clients' files? 

Do I have to give each of my +- 105 cousins permission separately?

Until people started dropping proprietary files into my dropbox account without permission or forewarning, I just gave everyone the userid and password. Given the content of the files, there were literally no privacy issues. Now I presume if I give them the userid and password they will be able to see everything?

Can you help me with the mechanics, please?  Thank you!

[Hannah]

Thanks for posting here again, @deegriswold!

There are a couple of different ways to share files with other people. It depends on your situation.

In your case, your clients' files are safe, shared between you and them, not accessible by your family, since they no longer have your login info.

If you want to share files with your cousins, though, there are a couple of parameters you need to keep in mind.

​​​​​Do they all have Dropbox accounts? Do those accounts have enough space to store the files? Will they all be contributing files?

If so, you can use shared folders. If not, you can give them view only access through a link.