Certain types of Dropbox Business admins have visibility into certain data sharing situations inside and outside your organization.
View shared activity
- Log in to dropbox.com using your admin credentials.
- Click Admin Console in the left sidebar .
- The Activity page shows shared events and other events. To see only shared events , select Shared from the dropdown menu .
The activity page shows your team's recent activity, but not all activity. Click Generate Report on the Activity tab to generate a report of your activity over a specified period of time . To view recent activity by a specific team member , click Members in the left sidebar and select the member's name from the list.
When an unknown user joins a shared folder
When an unknown user joins a shared folder, admins can see this status from the Activity tab as well as identify who invited this user.
Shared folder events are recorded when:
- If you created a shared folder
- Inviting other users to the folder
- When joining a folder
- If you delete a user from a folder
- If you change the role of another user who has joined the folder
- When you transfer ownership of a folder to another user
- When you unshare a folder
- If you change the sharing permission of the folder
- If you change the sharing permission of the shared folder in the management console
- Moving shared folders from business to personal accounts (and vice versa) - especially if folder-level settings and team-level settings allow sharing with people outside the team
Shared file events are logged when:
- when I add
- when I downloaded
- when edited
- when previewed
- when deleted
- when permanently deleted
- When restored (when you undelete a file or move it to its original location)
- When reverting (reverting a file to a version before any edits were made)
- when renamed
- When moved (when files are moved between folders)
- when copied
- When you roll back (when you roll back a user's account to a point in the past and the files affected by the rollback)
When shared link events are recorded:
- When a team member creates or shares a link
- A link is created/shared by someone outside the team from a shared folder owned by a team member
- If the link was shared or created using a third-party app
- If a team member removes the link
- When a team member changes the visibility of the link
- A team member puts a password or expiration date on the link
- When an admin changes the sharing permissions for a shared link in the Admin console
- When you open or save a file from a link to team-owned content
When file request events are logged:
- When a team member creates a file request
- When a team member receives a file uploaded to a file request
When Paper sharing events are recorded:
- When a Paper doc or folder is shared/unshared with a team member
- A team-owned Paper doc or folder is shared/unshared with someone outside the team
- When a team member views a Paper doc
- When someone outside your team views a Paper doc
- When a team member is mentioned in a Paper doc
- When someone outside the team is mentioned in a Paper doc owned by the team
- When the default sharing settings for Paper docs change
- Permissions for Paper doc members change
- When a team member or someone outside the team requests access to a Paper doc
Activities that visit links or add files to your Dropbox account are reported only in the activity report . Events are recorded not only by team members, but also when users outside the team open or add links to their Dropbox.
Shared audit logs do not track this activity because members have access to shared folders and can leave or re-add them at any time.
View shared activity on the Insights dashboard
Use the Insights dashboard to see details of team-sharing activity over time . The dashboard provides general usage statistics, such as how many links your team has created and how many shared folders are active. Learn more about the Insights Dashboard here .
View and manage external sharing
You can view the files, folders, and shared links that have been shared with people outside your team, along with details on how they were shared. This includes:
- Shared items—type, size, path
- Security—access level and whether protected by password or expiration date
- Shared—Who shared content with, when, and with whom
- Activity—Whether content has been viewed or edited
You can check these by downloading the report or viewing the externally shared page. You can also manage access to these files and folders from a dedicated external sharing page.
Note: For both dedicated pages and reports:
- Only include files and folders that are directly shared. For example, if a folder is shared, the folder is included, but the files within that folder are not.
- Include files and folders for which team members have created shared links.
- Only available to teams with 5 million or fewer external shares.
- Does not include Dropbox Paper docs.
Download externally shared reports
You can create externally shared reports from the externally shared page and Insights dashboard by clicking Create Report. Reports contain all externally shared data for your team and cannot be filtered.
View, filter, and manage external sharing
You can access a dedicated External Sharing page in the Admin Console to view, filter, and manage externally shared files and folders.
Note: Dropbox strives to keep this page as up-to-date as possible, but reports contain up-to-date information.
To open a shared external page:
- Log in to dropbox.com using your admin credentials.
- Click Admin Console in the left sidebar .
- Click Security in the left sidebar .
- Click [ External sharing ].
You can search and filter externally shared files by details such as the name of the file, when it was shared, who shared it, and file type.
To manage externally shared files or folders from the Externally Shared 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 [ ... ] icon.
- Click Manage Access .
If the file or folder is in a team folder, a sharing window will appear. If the file or folder isn't in a team folder, you 'll see the option to log in as a team member . In either case, once you've opened the file or folder sharing window, you can manage access the same way you manage access to files and folders shared in Dropbox .
