Some types of Dropbox Business admins can track how certain data is shared inside and outside their organization.
View sharing activities
- Log in to dropbox.com using your admin credentials.
- Click on the Administration section in the left sidebar.
- On the Activity page , sharing events appear along with other types of events. To filter only sharing events, select Sharing from the drop-down menu.
The Activity page displays a summary of your team's most recent activity. However, it does not display all actions performed by your team. You can generate a complete activity report for a specific period by clicking Create Full Report on the Activity tab . To see recent sharing activity for a specific team member, click Members in the left sidebar, then click the person's name in the list.
What if a stranger accesses a shared folder?
If a stranger enters a shared folder, admins will see this action and be able to check who sent the invite in the Activity tab .
What types of events are logged?
Shared folder events are logged when someone:
- Create a shared folder
- Invite a person to a folder
- Enter a folder
- Remove a person from a folder
- Change someone else's role on a folder
- Transfer ownership of a folder to someone else
- Unshare a folder
- Change sharing permissions on a folder
- Change general sharing permissions for shared folders in the Admin section
- Moves a shared folder from a professional Dropbox to a personal Dropbox (or vice versa), specifically when both the folder and team-level settings allow sharing with non-team users
Shared file events are logged when the file is:
- Added
- Downloaded
- Edited
- previously viewed
- Excluded
- permanently deleted
- Restored (when the file is undeleted or the file is moved back to its original location)
- Reverted (when a file reverts to a previous version before a set of edits are made)
- Renamed
- Moved (when a file is moved from one folder to another)
- copied
- Reverted (when a member's account is reverted to a previous point in time and the files that reversal affects)
Link sharing events are logged when:
- A team member creates or shares a link
- Someone outside the team creates and shares a link to a shared folder that is owned by a team member
- A link is shared or created through a third-party application
- 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 general sharing permissions for shared links in the Admin section
- Someone opens or saves files via a link from team-owned content
File request events are logged when:
- A team member creates a file request
- A team member receives a file submitted to a file request
Paper sharing events are logged when:
- A Paper doc or folder sharing with a team member is done or undone
- A team-owned Paper doc or folder is shared or unshared with a non-team person
- A team member views a Paper doc
- A non-team person views a Paper doc
- A team member is mentioned in a Paper doc
- A person not on the team is mentioned in a Paper doc owned by the team
- Default setting for sharing Paper docs is changed
- A member's permissions on a Paper doc change
- Access to a Paper doc is requested by a team member or non-team member
Opening a link or adding files to a Dropbox account are only reported in full activity reports . An event will be recorded when a team member or non-team member opens or adds the link to your Dropbox.
The share audit log does not track when a member leaves or adds a shared folder, because that member still has access to the folder and can return at any time.
View sharing activities in the stats panel
If you need a detailed overview of your team's sharing activities over time, check out the Stats Dashboard . It provides general usage status, such as the number of shared links created or the number of active shared folders. Learn more about the Stats Dashboard .
View and manage external sharing
You can view files, folders, and links shared with people outside the team and details of how they were shared, including:
- Shared items - type, size and path
- Security – access level and whether they are protected by password or expiry date
- Sharing – who shared the content, when and with whom
- Activity – whether the content has been viewed or edited
You can see this data by downloading a report or viewing the external sharing page. In addition, you can also manage access to these files and folders on a page dedicated to external sharing.
Note: Both the dedicated page and the report:
- Only include directly shared files and folders. For example, if a folder is shared, the folder will be included, but the files inside will not.
- Include files and folders that a team member has created a shared link to.
- They are only available to teams with less than five million external shares.
- Do not contain Dropbox Paper docs.
Download an external sharing report
You can click Create Report to generate an external sharing report on the external sharing page and stats dashboard . The report contains all data shared externally by the team and cannot be filtered.
View, filter and manage external sharing
You have access to a dedicated external sharing page in the Administration section where you can view, filter and manage externally shared files and folders.
Note: Dropbox works hard to keep this page as up-to-date as possible and to allow the report to also include up-to-date information.
To open the external sharing page:
- Log in to dropbox.com using your admin credentials.
- Click on the Administration section in the left sidebar.
- Click Security in the left sidebar.
- Click External Sharing.
You can search and filter externally shared files using information such as file names, when they were shared, who shared them, and the type of file.
To manage an externally shared file or folder from 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 “ … ” (ellipses).
- Click Manage Access .
If the file or folder is in a team folder, you will see the sharing window. If the file or folder isn't in a team folder, you'll see the Sign in as a team member option . In both cases, when the file or folder's sharing window is open, you can manage access to them the same way you would any shared file or folder on Dropbox .
