Alerts highlighting files that are already open

[jameshoganarchitects]

When working with a team on dropbox is would be brilliant to have an alert appear whenever yo attempt to open a file that is already in use by another team member. I understand there is a make shift version of this with the badges but that only works for a limited number of files and even still it is a poor version of the basic functionality a warning message that reads 'File Already In Use'.

This has been a feature in every other server/file sharing platform I have ever worked with so I cannot understand why it is not a prominent feature on drop box. We are an architecture firm working on DWG drawing files, shared across the office and if two people have the same file open and accidentally save over each others changes it can cost thousands. 

Even an ability to disable the possibility of two users opening the same file would work, but the badge system is very poor and only works on limited file types. Please, PLEASE can this feature be introduced?

[Mark]

It already is for some file types: https://help.dropbox.com/installs/badge-overview

However, the key thing to remember here is that Dropbox isn't a file server and would struggle to act like one because there are multiple copies of all the files not just one like on your old server. 

[Nancy]

Thanks for your post, @jameshoganarchitects! 

By the way, have you tried locking the file you’re editing? Does this feature help with what you’d like to achieve exactly? 

Let me know.

[Megan]

Hi @jameshoganarchitects, did you have a moment to check my colleague's response above?