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Forum Discussion

kelos-01's avatar
kelos-01
Helpful | Level 5
7 years ago

Private folder - Turn off or remove (Dropbox business)

I use dropbox business for my company (I'm the admin). 

I want to know if' there's anyway to turn off private folders for users? The reason is that in our business there's no reason for a "private folder" ofc for various reasons. 

Simply sharing the "private folder" is also not a solution for 100 people as an example.

So from a compliance/auditing/security point of view can this be done?

 

  • Fiona's avatar
    Fiona
    5 years ago

    Hello LAWFIRM-ADMIN

    Thanks for sharing details of your workflow to explain how important an option like this would be. I completely understand and I first want to invite you to share this idea in detail, in our share an idea section of the Community. 

    Allow me to elaborate on the logic behind the purple folders in teams. 

    1. Users onboard from personal accounts. Thus they sometimes already have personal files in their accounts. We cannot show these files to the whole team, just because the member onboarded. 
    2. Users outside your team might choose to share a folder/file with one of your members. In this case, the sender did not choose to show his files to all of you. They shared with only one user/email address. So the rest of the team should not be able to see this folder and this is one of the reasons the purple folder is an important location in team accounts. 

    Finally, please have in mind that our Business Advanced subscription offers a feature called sign in as user. With this feature, you can sign in as the members of your team and check or even take action on the purple/personal folder files. đź”Ť

    :books: Sign in as one of your Dropbox Business team members

    Let us know if this feature could be helpful in your case.

    Thank you for your feedback! 

  • Lusil's avatar
    Lusil
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    Hi kelos-01
     
    Although I understand your thought process on this, currently this is not possible as each user can have a private folder and shared folders; there isn’t a way to disable this. 
     
    Hope this clears up some confusion. 
    • LAWFIRM-ADMIN's avatar
      LAWFIRM-ADMIN
      New member | Level 2

      Uhhh ... @Lusil ... Wow this is TERRIBLE as a multi billion dollar company you are.

      We are in the same position ( I AM THE ADMIN) for a Law Firm, and there is NO reason for users, lets say 50,  to have their own private folder as it can cause security, compliance and mischievous actions and breach company security. And if anyone has anything to say about this, then these persons/employees can go home and save private files on their own personal computer, NOT company owned assets.

      Dropbox is also being paid by the Employer, therefore the asset/intellectual property and information is OWNED by the employer (hence the private folder) and NOT the employer and we should have a way to remove or turn off. You cant just hide files from an Employer, Operations Manager or HR when you are at a place of business.

      If a law suit occurs, and exhibits or information are held in PRIVATE FOLDERS and not submitted into the court, and no one can see them, then this could result in a multi-million dollar counter suit and damages. CHANGE YOUR POLICIES Dropbox and STOP flowing with the times. I know 2019 and 2020 are the years of entitlement and everyone is offended at something, but you dont reserve the right to harbour privacy and damages as a result of hidden and private files from an Emplpoyer that pays YOUR bill. And this can be a costly invoice Annually/Monthly! We dont complain about paying you, you should have an option to either Remove/Allow Private those private folders, how's THAT for equality.

      Stop acting like Facebook and creating controlled environments, thats a Free board, your services are PAID!

      • Fiona's avatar
        Fiona
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

        Hello LAWFIRM-ADMIN

        Thanks for sharing details of your workflow to explain how important an option like this would be. I completely understand and I first want to invite you to share this idea in detail, in our share an idea section of the Community. 

        Allow me to elaborate on the logic behind the purple folders in teams. 

        1. Users onboard from personal accounts. Thus they sometimes already have personal files in their accounts. We cannot show these files to the whole team, just because the member onboarded. 
        2. Users outside your team might choose to share a folder/file with one of your members. In this case, the sender did not choose to show his files to all of you. They shared with only one user/email address. So the rest of the team should not be able to see this folder and this is one of the reasons the purple folder is an important location in team accounts. 

        Finally, please have in mind that our Business Advanced subscription offers a feature called sign in as user. With this feature, you can sign in as the members of your team and check or even take action on the purple/personal folder files. đź”Ť

        :books: Sign in as one of your Dropbox Business team members

        Let us know if this feature could be helpful in your case.

        Thank you for your feedback! 

  • NickiE1's avatar
    NickiE1
    New member | Level 2

    Has any progress been made on this in the last 2 years?  I am deciding which cloud platform to go with, and this is one of the sticking points that is making me lean towards not using Dropbox.

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