How to manage your Dropbox sharing permissions

When you share a file or a folder with someone, you can decide which permissions they have. Members of a shared file or folder can have one of three roles—owner, editor, or viewer.

• Owner: Only one member can be the owner of a folder. The creator of a shared folder is automatically the owner, unless that shared folder is created within someone else’s parent folder, or they change the owner to someone else.
• Editor: Any member you give this permission to can add, edit, download, share, or delete files in the shared folder.
• Viewer: Any member you give this permission to can view, download, share, and comment on files in the shared folder, but not add, edit, or delete files.

Learn more about roles and permissions for members of a shared file or folder.

How to manage your default sharing settings

To manage your default sharing settings:

1. Sign in to dropbox.com.
2. Click your avatar (profile picture or initials) in the top right corner.
3. Click Settings. 
4. Click the Sharing tab.
5. Choose your default settings.
   • Use Who has access to manage who can open your shared links.
     • Anyone with the link: All the links you share are public. Anyone can open them.
     • Only people invited: Only people you invite can access your files and folders. If someone who wasn’t invited receives the link, they can’t open it.
   • Use What people can do to manage whether people can edit the files and folders you share.
     • Can edit: Anyone who can open the shared link can edit the file.
     • Can view: Anyone who can open the shared link can view and comment on the file, but not edit it.

Note: These settings won’t apply when you share from a mobile device, or when you copy and paste a link from the address bar.

The changes you make to default sharing settings won’t be applied to existing shared links. Only new links will use this setting.

Not using Dropbox yet? See how Dropbox makes managing file permissions easy.

How to change a member’s access to a shared folder

To change a member's access to a shared folder:

On dropbox.com

1. Sign in to dropbox.com.
2. Hover over the folder you’d like to change permissions for and click the “…” (ellipsis).
3. Click Share.
4. Click Share with Dropbox. 
5. Click Who can access.
6. Click the dropdown next to the member you’d like to change.
7. Select Can edit or Can view.

On the Dropbox desktop app

1. Open the Dropbox folder in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac).
2. Right-click or command-click the folder you’d like to change.
3. Click Share….
4. Click the dropdown next to the member you’d like to change.
5. Select Can edit or Can view.

On the Dropbox mobile app

1. Open the Dropbox mobile app.
2. Tap the “⁝” (vertical ellipsis on Android) or “…” (ellipsis on iPhone/iPad) next to the folder you’d like to change.
3. Tap Folder settings.
4. Tap the area below [x] members.
5. Tap the name of the member you’d like to change.
6. Tap Access.
7. Tap Can edit or Can view.

Note: Granting edit or view access for a parent folder will allow that access level to all subfolders within that parent folder as well.

Prevent members from inviting other people to a shared folder

If you're the owner of a shared folder, you can prevent members from inviting other people to the folder.

On dropbox.com

1. Sign in to dropbox.com.
2. Hover over the folder you’d like to change permissions for and click the “…” (ellipsis).
3. Click Share.
4. Click Share with Dropbox. 
5. Click the settings icon (gear icon).
6. Select your preferences using the dropdown next to Manage access.
7. Click Save.

On the Dropbox desktop app

1. Open the Dropbox folder in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac).
2. Right-click or command-click the folder you’d like to manage.
3. Click Share….
4. Click the settings icon (gear icon).
5. Select your preferences using the dropdown next to Manage access.
6. Click Save.

On the Dropbox mobile app

1. Open the Dropbox mobile app.
2. Tap the “⁝” (vertical ellipsis on Android) or “…” (ellipsis on iPhone/iPad) next to the folder you’d like to manage.
3. Tap Folder settings.
4. Tap Management.
5. Tap Only the owner.

Roles and permissions for members of a shared file or folder

Note: The permissions in the table below may differ for customers in a team account, because admins can manage sharing settings for their team.

	Owner	Editor	Viewer
File and Folder actions
View folder members and their roles
View folder contents
Edit folder contents
Comment on files in folder			*
Unshare folder	†
Member actions
Invite and remove members	‡	*‡
Cancel invites and reinvite members		*
Determine who can be invited to the folder
Determine who can manage membership of the folder
Make another member the owner
Change roles of other members		*
Email members
Move a shared folder into a team folder §
Leave the folder

*This is the default setting for shared folders. The owner of a shared folder can change this setting.
†Owners can only unshare a folder if the folder doesn’t have any shared folders inside of it and the folder isn’t inside another shared folder.
‡If a shared folder is created within a team account, only members of that team can invite and remove members.
§This only applies for team accounts.