Personal Folders in Dropbox Business

[Rams]

I'm looking at Dropbox Business and have a few questions about personal folders.

1. Can users covered by my Dropbox Business account create personal folders within the Dropbox Business structure or does an admin have to create them?

2. If users can create personal folders, are the names of the personal folders and their contents visible to everyone covered by the Dropbox Business account even if they are not shared by the user who created them?

3. Can an admin see all of the folders and files in a Dropbox Business account including personal folders/files even if they haven't been shared by the person who created them?

4. I understand that users can link their personal Dropbox accounts with a Dropbox Business account but, if they can create personal folders within Dropbox Business, do they need a personal Dropbox account?

[Jay · Accepted solution]

Hi there, I can help answer these questions for you:

1. Users can create as many personal (aka private) folders as they wish.
2. The folders remain private to the user unless they actively choose to share them with someone, or if they accidentally create the folder in an existing shared folder.
3. If Dropbox Business subscription is on the Advanced or Enterprise plans, then the team admin can sign-in as a user to immediately view their account as they would view it on the site. This will allow the admin to see any files or folders that the user created, or shared folders they are a member of.
4. An easier way to phrase this is ‘would users like to use their work account to store personal files and folders, which the team admin controls and could potential access or delete their account entirely?’ Most likely the answer is no, since the team admin can prevent them from ever accessing their files again. A paired personal account allows users the freedom of having their own account away from the team, and the knowledge that the team admin cannot access their personal account at all, as well as having a work account sync as normal.

Hope this info helps clarify matters!

[Rams]

Thanks--very helpful!

[Andrew99]

Thanks Jay - I had the same question and follow up:  How do you have a paired personal account to DropBox Business? (If I have just one personal email account I use)

My issue is I work for a small startup that wants to use DropBox Business - however I only have a personal email and personal DropBox account.

I thought there were only two options: Either join the new business account and transfer my personal files to this account, or I have to create a separate DropBox account for personal with a new email (which I don't have).

[Jay]

Hi @Andrew99, if you have an email address that could be part of a team (like a new work address, or even a second email address you use), you could have the team add that second email to your account.

Make sure they’re adding that email, andrew@work.com, instead of your own email with the Dropbox account, andrew@home.com.

Once the work email is added to the team, you can pair the two using the steps here.

This allows them to both sync on your desktop machine, and to keep your files separate. The team admin will not know of any files on your personal account.

If that admin has already invited your personal email to the team, ask them to delete their invite, and instead invite the other email.

If you need any clarification, let me know!