cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Announcements
Want to learn some quick and useful tips to make your day easier? Check out how Calvin uses Replay to get feedback from other teams at Dropbox here.

Dropbox ideas

Got an idea for Dropbox? We want to hear it. Our team will review the top voted ideas, so share them here!

Got an idea for Dropbox? We want to hear it. Our team will review the top voted ideas, so share them here!

cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Preventing folders from being moved

Preventing folders from being moved

David G.14
New member | Level 2

Looking for a way, as admin to a shared folder which contains sub-folders, to keep other team members from accidentally moving those sub-folders. Part of it is education: novices do not grasp that by moving a folder to their desktop (for whatever reason) they are moving it out of DB and visibility to the rest of the team. This has occurred a few times, and as the team grows, it would be better if admin could lock a folder's POSITION. Probably would be a benefit to keep the folders from being renamed, but that is less likely to happen. Users should still be able to freely work with and move files as needed within the locked-position folders. Maybe there is a way to do this that I'm not aware of. Third party folder manager (those I reviewed are focused on encrypting, password protecting and/or hiding folders)? Any advice would be appreciated.

Latest Update
Walter
Dropbox Staff
This idea has been closed as it has reached the end of the Share an Idea process.
 
Thank you for your suggestion, and if you have another idea to share, please do! 
Status changed to: Closed
45 Comments
Fiona
Dropbox Staff

Hello @marauder28!

Thanks for joining our Community!

I understand you would like to have additional settings to prevent the movement of folders from members without removing their permissions to edit. This option is not available at the time. But it is a very good feature request and I will report it! :dividers:

I would like to point out that moving shared folders only reflects for the user moving them when sharing is not in a team folder. The other members of the folder would still see the shared folder in the original location. This gives everyone the ability to organise their content as they wish. 

Moving folders in a Team folder, allows the members of the team folder to see the movement, if the destination location of the directory is also inside the Team space. 

Note: Only the Admin can move a folder, completely out of a Team space. 

Finally, as described by @MissT5, when someone moves a folder, the system takes time to transfer all the files to the new filepath you chose. If you move it back or elsewhere the system would again take time to sync the changes. :arrows_counterclockwise:

Again thank you for the feature request! :nerd:

 

marauder28
Helpful | Level 5

Hello and thank you for the clarifications. We are enterprise users who use Team spaces extensively to collaborate. So, a feature like this is very, very, very important.

We recently had an incident where a user inadvertantly moved a large folder containing lots of large subfolders on his dropbox mobile app at the end of the day and left on vacation.

Other users still working started to see files and folders go missing. Some users saw partial syncs of the move in another folder and started moving things around to try and fix it. It became a mess and we needed to get the Restoration team involved. This took an entire weekend and a few days to get resolved.

And as you mentioned to @MissT5, it takes time for the system to sync the changes. That's a huge waste of time, which is why this feature is so badly needed. 

Fiona
Dropbox Staff

Thank you for sharing more reasons for this feature request to be upvoted @marauder28:chart_with_upwards_trend:

We appreciate your time. 

I completely understand that this accidental syncing was not pleasant and didn't help the workflow. Please keep in mind that a movement of a folder in Dropbox (mobile, desktop and the web) takes a few steps to be completed.  Selection of the folder, selection of the action, selection of the location and confirmation to move. This is to make it harder for the movements to be accidental. 

Realistically, a cloud service must sync to have the changes updated live. Syncing speeds are related to several factors and large amounts of files can take some time to sync. Syncing will always be a process when using cloud services but the feature requested could be an extra safety guard for such incidents. 

We are doing our best to improve and your feedback will always be reviewed. 

Thank you for choosing to work with Dropbox and took the time to post about this!

Walter
Dropbox Staff

Hi all!

This idea is going to need a bit more support before we can share your suggestion with the team.  

I’ve updated the status to encourage more users to back you up! 

 

Status changed to: Gathering Support
Frank P.14
Explorer | Level 4

I found a routine on the net that make the computer ask if you want to move a folder:

http://broken-e.com/dragdropconfirm

I have installed this on all my computers since my comment in 2018. I now get asked 2-3 times a month if I really want to move a folder on my laptop where I use the finger controlled mouse. May not sound much but considering the trouble it can be to find a moved folder its been well worth while. 

I have asked all staff to install it but it is one of those things you loose track of. Anyway we have not lost a file in this way fro sometime and it has stopped the calls to move away from dropbox. Something like draganddropconfirm as a standard part of something like dropbox (or a server) seems like a must if you dont want to suddenly find one of your folders/files missing. 

Jtaylor2d
Helpful | Level 5

I too would like to see this feature. Too many times people accidently moves a folder and it causes a lot of problems. If there is a large amount of data in these folders then sync updates will hit a lot of machines. Would be great to be able to lock in a location so it can never be moved, thus never causing any unforseen issues.

Lusil
Dropbox Staff

Hey everyone, thanks for your ongoing comments on this thread!

 

I just wanted to jump in and mention that, if you haven't already, you can also check out our file locking feature which prevents a file from being edited by others. 

 

You can find more about it in this article

 

In the meantime, if you have any additional thoughts or questions for us, don't hesitate to give us a shout. Cheers!

Chisomo
Explorer | Level 4

This feature would be a big plus.  We use DropBox in Africa and the network is slow and expensive.  If someone accidentally moves a folder it causes a mess for the whole team and wastes a lot of data getting it resolved.  

Locking the folder to keep it from being edited is nice but not the same as keeping it from being moved by anyone but the admin.

These features need to be available on the free edition as well.

marauder28
Helpful | Level 5

I agree with Chisomo on this point. While locking a file is nice, it would be better to be able to set a permission at the folder level. 

marauder28
Helpful | Level 5

Just to add to that. I think locking a file is a great feature for teams that use less data. For Business and Enterprise users that deal with large amounts of data, locking individual files is cumbersome and not feasible. What our team (and possibly other teams) need is way to prevent an entire folder from being moved, while still having the capability to edit and move folders/files within the locked folder. 

Vote for this idea

Like this idea? Vote for it and we will give it the attention it deserves!

51 votes received