this folder can only be shared as a link - why?

[SteffenEB]

I'm trying to share a folder when I get a "this folder can only be shared as a link" message. Why?

[Fiona]

Hey @SteffenEB!

This message appears when a shared folder is in another share folder and you are trying to apply sharing on both. With a Dropbox individual account, users can only share one folder out of a "tree" folder stucture. Please note that Dropbox Teams have other sharing capabilities for subfolders.

Now, in this case there are a few things you can do. You can have all your subfolders moved on a top level, This will make your structure simple and you will easily share and see all your folders.

Alternatively, you could unshare the level that is shared at the time and share the other directory instead. This would not require any folder movement, but you will still get the "only shared link" message for the other directories of this structure.

Read more about this here. 

I hope this post helps. I am here to answer any further questions you might have. 

Thanks!

[SteffenEB]

Yes! That's it. Tanks.

And if you work online you will be provided with enough information/clues to figures this out. If you're trying to share such a folder locally on the other hand. You only get the message I posted above.
That's a big drawback for our company who are trying to get our customers of local shared folders onto cloud platforms. The local experience cannot be lagging behind the browser version.

[Fiona]

Happy to have helped. 

Very nice observation! We would love to make the local experience easier. I will make sure this comment gets reviewed by our devs.

Thank you for taking the time to share this feedback @SteffenEB. 

[Hannah · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone!

There have been some recent changes and you can now share a subfolder inside an already shared folder.

However, there are some rules to keep in mind, when trying to do this. You can read more about that in our Help Center article here.

I hope this helps!