Web session control: an overview

Updated Jan 19, 2024
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This article discusses a feature that is only available to Dropbox teams on Dropbox Standard, Business, Advanced, Business Plus, and Enterprise.

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Note: Web session control is not currently fully integrated with Paper web sessions.

  • When team members are logged out via web session control, their Paper web sessions may take up to six hours to expire.
  • When idle session is enabled, team members who are interacting with Paper will still be logged out of dropbox.com.

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Note: Web session control is not currently integrated with Dropbox Capture and Dropbox Replay.

  • When team members are logged out via web session control, their Dropbox Capture and Dropbox Replay sessions won't expire.
  • When the idle session is enabled, team members who are interacting with Dropbox Capture and Dropbox Replay will still be logged out of dropbox.com.

Web session control helps safeguard access to organization data by allowing admins to control how long team members can be logged into dropbox.com. There are two different options for web session control:

  • Fixed session length: Allows admins to control the interval during which team members can be logged in to dropbox.com (for example, one week or one month).
  • Idle session length: Allows admins to control how long a team member can stayed logged in without interacting with dropbox.com (for example, 48 hours of inactivity).

Admins can use these controls independently, or together.

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Note: Web session control will only affect team members’ access to dropbox.com. It won’t affect access to the Dropbox mobile or desktop app.

When team members reach the limit the admin has set, their web session will expire. When they try to take any action on dropbox.com, they’ll be logged out and be prompted to log in again. Reaching the end of a web session limit won’t affect any file downloads that are in progress.

When admins set a fixed session length, the session is measured from the time a team member logs in and the sessions are calculated as a number of days. For example, if an admin selects one week, the fixed session will last for seven days from the time the team member logs in.

To adjust these settings, navigate to the web session control section of the admin console:

  1. Log in to dropbox.com.
  2. Click Admin Console.
  3. Click Settings.
  4. Scroll down to Web session control to set fixed session length and idle session length. Admins can set one or both features.
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Note: Reducing the fixed session length will log out all team members. Admins may want to make this change at a time when it won’t disrupt their team.

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