Dropbox Question

Russell

Member
Wonder if anyone knows a solution to a Dropbox issue I've got. I'm looking to set up a shared Dropbox folder for one of my clients to act as a central cloud storage for their image and artwork files. Basically I want to restrict the permissions of some people sharing the folder (the clients distributors & stockists) so they can access and save the files locally but not remove them from the folder.

At the moment I don't think you can add any read/ write permissions to shared folders but does anyone know a work around?
 
I don't know if it's possible, maybe you could lock the files on your home computer and she if that works?
 
Do you mean locking them under 'Sharing & Permissions'`? I don't think that would have any impact on whether Dropbox allows the file to be moved but worth a test.

Just seen on the 'Votebox' section of their website sharing permissions is the second most requested development with 79,149 votes, so it's quite a common problem. May have a nose to see if their are any plug-ins that could do the job.
 
I haven't really used it to it's fullest potential.

Mine is full of things a few friends have sent me whilst I've been away!

I've used it once or twice for work too!
 
Generally I think it's great. I have a client that is an in-house design team but I work for them offsite. They drag all the assets I need for a brief off their server, I do the work, save it to the dropbox and they drag it back to their server. Also use it for collaborative web based projects with Andy (TBWCF) which really helps smooth the process of sending files back and forth.

Still going to set up a shared folder for my client to act as a cloud image bank but can see I'd need to keep an eye on it. I know by default the files get moved rather than copied when you drag them to your desktop on a mac, (just like any other folder you'd have on your computer), not sure if the same applies to PCs.
 
as daft as this seems but have you got an hotmail account, I'm 99% certain you can set up a shared folder in it's skydrive section. You can password folders etc too.

If not you could always set up a passworded folder on your website, I know I can set up webdav/passworded directory or similar on mine so that another user could access a folder using a password (different to mine) etc

Edit you could also set up a second new dropbox account and then just sync that one folder to it, just log into it when it needs updating etc.
 
Thanks just had a quick look at SkyDrive and that could be a good option, seems you can get 25GB of storage free which would be plenty. Going to have a proper look into it as I've only just got the client used to dropbox but would save upgrading to a pro account, and looks like you can set read/write permissions too. Cheers :clap:
 
Hmm, signed up for it but it's got too many limitations as you have to add each file individually and even if you zip some up it has a 50MB maximum file size which wouldn't be enough for any artwork files. Think I'll stick with Dropbox but just make sure anyone sharing the folders know to copy rather than move. Hopefully Dropbox will get round to adding some permission options.
 
ok just looked at dropbox (haven't really bothered using it) and there's this bit

Simple sharing

Shared folders allow people to work together on the same projects and documents.


  • Invite friends, family or teammates to a folder. It'll be as if you saved the folder to their computers.
  • See other people's changes instantly.
  • Create photo galleries viewable by anyone you choose.
  • Send a link to any file in your Dropbox using your Public folder.
Seems like it does what you're after to me....or is it not secure enough. Just tried it on mine and what it does is send an email with a link to your shared folder and the other person follows it, they have to either have an account or make one. They can then upload/download files etc by the looks of it too

edit: checked it - 2 different accounts, only see shared folder. Will sync on both systems without issue
 
Simple sharing

Shared folders allow people to work together on the same projects and documents.

Invite friends, family or teammates to a folder. It'll be as if you saved the folder to their computers.
See other people's changes instantly.
Create photo galleries viewable by anyone you choose.
Send a link to any file in your Dropbox using your Public folder.

Sorry Levi, don't think I've been clear. I've been using Shared folders with my client on dropbox as above for a while and have no problem with it, but I need to invite the clients distributors to have access to it too. The only issue I have is I'd want to be able to restrict their access so they can't remove or add files themselves only download/ save them to their desktop so the original file stays within dropbox.

It's not a massive issue as I will have files locally so if they remove any I can replace them, but I can just see anytime they want an image they will move it out of dropbox to somewhere else on their computer rather than copy it. Does that make sense?
 
ah now I get you. Couldn't you use the photo gallery bit, I'm assuming this is more images rather than the actually the editable work files.
 
If it was all just jpegs that would work perfectly as I could just send a link and they can view contents in browser and download individual items, but the photos folder doesn't show up PDFs, zipped files etc.
 
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