Table of Contents
Introduction: Why You Might Want to Share a Dropbox Folder With Someone
It is a good idea to share a Dropbox folder with someone you trust. You can make one folder for your “personal” documents, and another to share with co-workers or family. If you don’t want the documents to live in your Dropbox folder, you can also share a folder by emailing a file. Here are some reasons why I think it’s good to share a Dropbox folder:
1. We all have sensitive/personal documents (e.g., tax documents, marriage certificates, maternity photos) that we’d rather NOT share with coworkers or family. If you do share a Dropbox folder with others, be sure to decide beforehand whether you want the other person to have access to read or modify these documents.[1]
2. It’s easy for co-workers to leave viruses on your computer due to their frequent logins on shared computers, drive-by downloads from websites and email attachments. There are hundreds of viruses available in the wild, and new ones are being released every week. Since sharing a Dropbox folder can potentially enable other people to download a virus into your computer, it’s important to think twice about whether you want your folder shared.
3. Dropbox is set up to sync everything (documents, pictures, videos) in your account to all the computers that you log-in on. You can access Dropbox on mobile devices or any computer with an internet connection (while you’re away from your desktop computer or laptop). If you share a Dropbox folder, anyone who has access to your computer will be able to access these documents on all the computers that you choose to sync with. Be warned that you can’t decide which files will sync with which laptops and mobile devices.
Tips on How to Share a Dropbox File or Folder and Prevent Others from Opening It
So that no one can read or edit your files, you need to enable the “Only Me” setting (https://www.dropbox.com/help/12-how-do-i-enable-the-only-me-setting) to only allow you access to your shared folder. You can share a Dropbox folder with other people, but they won’t be able to view anything in it without your invitation.
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How to UnShare Dropbox Folder [END OF ARTICLE]
Step 1. Go to this page and sign in with your dropbox account: https://www.dropbox.com/account (notice the URL does not begin with https://www.dropbox.com or https://www.dropbox.com/).
Step 2. You will see a screen like the following:
Step 3. Click on the box marked “Share this folder” and click “Share Folder”. You will see a screen similar to this one:
step 4. At the top of the page, you can save this link to a text file (in .txt format) where you can paste it into your browser’s address bar and view it: http://www.exampleurl.com/dropbox/dropbox_folder_name
Note: When you share a Dropbox folder, the url is automatically generated to be like “https://www.dropbox.com/shares/XXXXXX/” where XXXXXX is some random string of letters and numbers.
How to Unshare A Specific File In A Shared Dropbox Folder
If you’ve accidentally unshared a file, you can re-share it by clicking the ‘+’ button at the bottom of Dropbox folder. Then click ‘Share Link’ and select the person you want to share the file with. You’ll be offered a choice of options, such as “view or edit”. To make sure that other people don’t accidentally open your dropbox without permission, check the box for “This is a private link.”
Source/credit: “How to Unshare A Specific File In A Shared Dropbox Folder” : http://www.wikihow.com/Unshare-A-Specific-File-In-A-Shared-Dropbox-Folder
Note: In the example in this article (Steps 2,3 and 4), it refers to using the Dropbox software program to unshare a file via the internet. For example, a window will open on your computer display. Follow the steps as described in the article for how to unshare a file by using the Dropbox software program.
Note: The other example may be available via the following link (to copy from this article): http://kb.dropbox.com/help/27
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#5: “How to share a folder in Dropbox via the command line” : http://www.htbridge.com/articles/share-folder-dropbox-via-the-command-line/
Conclusion: Benefits of Sharing Folders & How To Protect Your Privacy
This guide shows how you can share a Dropbox folder with others by emailing them a link. Another good thing about sharing a Dropbox folders is that you’ll have access to the same set of documents, for example on your desktop at work and at home on your laptop. There are three benefits to having shared Dropbox folders: You can also access documents stored in a Dropbox folder on another device, such as your iPad or smartphone. Your co-workers or family members will have access to your personal documents, and will be able to view them, in the same way that you can access data stored on their computer. You’ll have a backup of important work documents (you can also choose to share files that are not stored in Dropbox).
In general, the benefits of using Dropbox are that it keeps your data synchronized across different devices, and it’s easy to share with others. After you’ve used Dropbox for a while, you’ll find that you won’t miss the old way of handling files and documents. Note: You’ll need to have a free Dropbox account to make use of these instructions.
Step 1: Accessing your Dropbox folder on the Web
The first thing to do is access your shared Dropbox folder on the Web. You can do this at any time by entering the following URL: https://www.dropbox.com/shares
You should see a list of folders that you’ve previously shared on your computer.
Step 2: Sharing a Dropbox Folder by Emailing a link to other people
