Dropbox Business admins with specific roles can track how specific data is shared inside and outside your organization.
View sharing activity
- Sign in to dropbox.com as an admin .
- Click Management Console in the left sidebar .
- Approval activities, like other operations, appear on the Activity page . If you want to filter the sharing activities, select Sharing from the drop-down menu .
The activity page provides a summary of recent activity within the team. However, it does not include all actions performed by your team. If required, you can generate a full activity report for a specific time period by selecting the Generate Full Report option on the Activity page . You can also see recent sharing activity for specific team members by clicking Users in the left sidebar, then clicking each user's name in the list.
What to do if an unknown person joins a shared folder
When an unknown user joins a shared folder, admins can see it on the Activity tab . There they can also check who sent them the invitation.
What types of events are recorded?
The following operations related to shared folders are listed under Activity:
- Someone creates a shared folder.
- Someone invites another user to a folder.
- Someone joins a folder.
- Someone removes a user from a folder.
- Someone changes the role of another user of a folder.
- Someone transfers ownership of a folder to another user.
- Someone is unsharing a folder.
- Someone changes sharing permissions on a folder.
- Someone changes the general sharing permissions for shared folders in the admin console.
- Someone moves a shared folder from a work Dropbox to a personal Dropbox or vice versa, especially when both the folder and team level settings allow sharing outside of the team.
The following actions with shared files are recorded:
- Added
- downloaded
- Processed
- Call preview
- Deleted
- Permanently delete
- Restore (when a delete operation is undone or a file is moved to its original location)
- Revert (when reverting a file to a previous version)
- renamed
- Move (when a file is moved from one folder to another)
- Copy
- Account reset (the files affected when a user's account is reset)
The following operations related to shared links are reported under Activity:
- A team member creates a link or shares a link.
- A non-team user creates a link to or shares a link to a team member's shared folder.
- A link is shared or created by a third-party app.
- A team member removes a link.
- A team member changes the visibility of a link.
- A team member sets a password or expiration date for a link.
- An admin changes the general sharing permissions for shared links in the admin console.
- Someone opens or saves files via a link to content owned by a team.
The following operations related to file requests are listed under Activity:
- A team member creates a file request.
- A team member receives a file uploaded to a file request.
These Paper sharing operations are logged:
- A Paper doc is shared or unshared within the team
- A team's Paper doc or folder is shared or unshared outside of the team
- A team member opens a Paper doc
- A non-team user views a Paper doc
- A team member is mentioned in a Paper doc
- A non-team user is mentioned in a team Paper doc
- The default sharing settings for Paper docs will be changed
- A user's access permissions for a Paper doc will be changed
- A team member or non-team user requests access to a Paper doc
Opening a link or adding files to a Dropbox account is only reported in a full activity report. An event is recorded whether a team member or a non-team user opens the link or adds it to their Dropbox.
The sharing log doesn't record whether a user leaves or adds back to a shared folder , because that user still has access to the folder and can add it back at any time.
Track sharing activities through the analytics dashboard
The analytics dashboard lets you view your team's sharing activity for a specific time period. Total usage statistics, such as B. the number of shared links and the number of active shared folders are displayed. Learn more about the analytics dashboard
View and manage external shares
You can see what files, folders, and sharing links are shared with people outside of your team. You can also view the following release details:
- Shared content - format, size and path
- Security - access level and details of password protection and expiration
- Sharing – Who shared content, when, and with whom
- Activity - Whether content was viewed or edited
You can view this information by downloading a report or by visiting the external releases page. You can also manage access to these files and folders through a dedicated external sharing page.
Note: For both the special page and the report:
- They only include files and folders that have been directly shared. if e.g. For example, if a folder is shared, the folder is included but not the files within.
- They include files and folders that a team member has created a sharing link for.
- They're only available to teams with fewer than five million external shares.
- They don't include Dropbox Paper docs.
Download a report on external shares
You can click Generate report to generate an external shares report from the external shares page and analytics dashboard . The report contains all of the team's data on external releases and cannot be filtered.
View, filter and manage external shares
You have access to a dedicated external sharing page in the management console. There they can view, filter and manage externally shared files and folders.
Note: Dropbox tries to keep this page as up-to-date as possible. The report always contains the most up-to-date information.
To open the External Shares page:
- Sign in to dropbox.com as an admin .
- Click Management Console in the left sidebar .
- Click Security in the left sidebar .
- Click External Sharing .
You can search and filter externally shared files using details such as file name, time shared, who shared it, and file format.
To manage an externally shared file or folder on the External Sharing page:
- Follow the steps above to open the external sharing page.
- Hover over the name of the file or folder you want to manage.
- Click the ellipsis (...).
- Click Manage Access .
If the file or folder is in a team folder, the sharing window appears. If the file or folder isn't in a team folder, you'll see the option to sign in as a team member . Once you've opened the sharing window for the file or folder, you can manage access to it the same way you normally manage access to any shared file or folder in Dropbox .
