Certain types of Dropbox Business admins can track the sharing of certain data within or outside of your organization.
Viewing sharing activity
- Log in to dropbox.com with your administrator credentials.
- Click Admin Interface in the sidebar on the left.
- On the Activity page , sharing events appear alongside other event types. To view only sharing events, select Sharing from the drop-down menu.
The Activity page displays a summary of recent team activity. It does not show all the actions performed by your team. You can generate a full activity report for a specific time period by clicking Create Full Report on the Activity tab . You can also view a specific team member's recent sharing activity by clicking Members in the sidebar on the left, then clicking the desired person's name in the list.
What happens if an unknown person joins a shared folder?
When a stranger joins a shared folder, administrators have access to this information in the Activity tab . They can also see who made the invitation.
What types of events are logged?
Shared folder events are recorded when someone:
- create a shared folder
- invites someone to join a folder
- join a folder
- remove a person from a file
- changes another person 's access rights to a folder
- transfers ownership of a folder to another person
- unshare a folder
- change the sharing permissions of a folder
- change general sharing permissions of shared folders from admin interface
- moves a shared folder from work Dropbox to personal Dropbox (or vice versa), especially when folder- level and team- level settings allow sharing outside of the team.
Shared file events are logged when a file is:
- Added
- Uploaded
- Amended
- Shown as a preview
- Deleted
- Permanently deleted
- Restored (when a file deletion is undone or a file is moved back to its original location)
- Reverted (when the previous version of a file is reverted to its state before a change set was performed)
- Renowned
- Moved (when a file is moved to another folder)
- Copy
- Recovered (when the previous state of a user's account and files within it are recovered)
Shared link events are logged when:
- A team member creates or shares a link.
- A non-team member creates or shares a link from a shared folder that belongs to a team member
- A link is shared or created through a third-party application.
- A team member deletes a link.
- A team member changes the visibility of a link.
- A team member configures a password or timeout for a link.
- An administrator changes the general sharing permissions of shared links from the administration interface.
- Someone opens or saves files from a link that leads to team-owned content.
File request events are logged when:
- When a team member creates a file request
- When a team member receives a file transferred in response to a file request
Paper sharing events are recorded when:
- A Paper doc or folder is shared with a team member or when unshared
- A team-owned Paper doc or folder is shared with someone outside the team or when it's unshared
- A team member views a Paper doc
- Someone outside the team views a Paper doc
- A team member is mentioned in a Paper doc
- A person outside the team is mentioned in a Paper doc belonging to the team
- Default Paper doc sharing setting is changed
- Paper doc member permissions are changed
- Access to the Paper doc is required by a team member or someone outside the team
Events for opening a link or adding files to a Dropbox account only appear in the Full Activity Report . An event is logged when a team member or someone outside of the team opens or adds the link to their Dropbox.
When a member leaves or re-adds a shared folder, no activity is logged in the Sharing Activity Audit Log because that member still has access to the folder and can re-add it at any time.
View sharing activity in the dashboard
For detailed insights into your team's sharing activity over a period of time, check out the Analytics Dashboard . Here you will find general usage statistics, such as the number of shared links created and the number of active shared folders. Learn more about the analytics dashboard
Viewing and managing sharing outside the team
You can view the files, folders, and links that are shared with people outside your team and how they are actually shared, including:
- Shared items: type, size and path
- Security: access level, password protection or validity period
- Sharing: person at the origin of the sharing, date, time and recipients
- Activity: whether the content has been viewed or modified
You can view this information by downloading a report or viewing the Shares page outside of the team. You can also manage access to these files and folders from a dedicated page for sharing outside the team.
Note: concerning the dedicated page and the report:
- They only mention files and folders that are shared directly. For example, any shared folder is there, but not the files it contains.
- They mention the files and folders for which a team member has created a shared link.
- They're only available to teams that have less than five million shares with outsiders.
- They do not contain any Dropbox Paper documents.
Downloading a report from sharing outside the team
You can click Create Report to create a report from the Shares outside the team page and Dashboard . This report contains all data from shares outside of the team, and it cannot be filtered.
Viewing, filtering, and managing shares outside of the team
You have access to a page dedicated to sharing outside the team in the administration interface. From here, you can view, filter, and manage files and folders shared outside of the team.
Note: While Dropbox strives to keep this page as up-to-date as possible, the report includes the most up-to-date information.
To open the Shares page outside the team:
- Log in to dropbox.com with your administrator credentials.
- Click Admin Interface in the sidebar on the left.
- Click Security in the left sidebar.
- Click Sharing outside the team .
You can search and filter files shared outside the team based on several criteria: file names, when they were shared, who shared them, and file type.
To manage a file or folder shared outside the team from the Shares page:
- Follow the steps above to open the Shares page outside of the team.
- Hover over the name of the file or folder you want to manage.
- Click the three dots icon ( … ).
- Click Manage Access .
If the file or folder is in a team folder, you'll see the sharing window. If the file or folder is not in a team folder, you will see the option to sign in as a team member . In either case, as soon as the sharing window associated with the file or folder opens, you can manage access to it just like any other shared file or folder in Dropbox .
