Monitoring file download by team members

Question

Hi,Is there a way that I can see when and how frequently my team members have downloaded specific files from shared folders?I am planning to share valuable information with my team and I don't want them to download these onto their own computer.&nbsp;thank you.&nbsp;

Lusil · Answer

Hi there, sjrd1991.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
If you’ve got a Business subscription and you’re a team admin, you can find more info about all sharing-related actions, including sending a link to a file or joining a folder, or sharing a file or folder owned by a team member through your activity log.&nbsp;If you’re an admin or a user management admin, you also can track how data is shared inside and outside your company.
&nbsp;
I also wanted to mention that if you’d like to disable downloads for shared content, you can do so if you send users a shared link to the folder/file, instead. However, users won’t be able to edit the contents of the folder/file, but only be able to view it.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
I hope this helped to some extent.&nbsp;:slight_smile:

sjrd1991 · Answer

Hi,&nbsp;I know where to find the information you are telling me but this is not really answering my question. I only would like to know if I can see which team member has downloaded specific files and when this has taken place.Is this possible?&nbsp;Kind regards,Sjoerd

Walter · Answer

In&nbsp;this case, all you need to do is go to your Activity tab from within your Admin Console and apply the filters you'd like to narrow your search to be so specific. I was just able to do this for specific members on my team by applying the "Downloaded files" filter (you can also determine a date range for more accurate results) - this is how it looks like (I used a file's extension for my search : .png files in this example):&nbsp;

I hope this helps to some extent&nbsp;Sjoerd - please let us know if you have any more questions!
In the meantime, have a wonderful new Year&nbsp;sjrd1991!

sjrd1991 · Answer

Hi Walter,&nbsp;Thanks.So when I copy files from the Dropbox folder on my desktop and paste these on my local drive, is this then also considered as "downloading files"?&nbsp;In other words, does this specific activity then also reflect when you apply the activity filter?&nbsp;Regards

Walter · Answer

To Dropbox this action is logged as a&nbsp;copy (or deletion if you're moving them instead of copying them)&nbsp;sjrd1991&nbsp;- these would also be logged to your Events page normally.
Moreover, note that while it's common to assume that Dropbox works like a network drive (because of its many online features), however, your Dropbox folder is actually a normal folder and its contents are stored on your hard drive (therefore the files you mentioned are downloaded already).&nbsp;
Our desktop application only watches your Dropbox folder for changes and syncs those changes online and to your other computers. One of the benefits of this way of syncing is always having access to your files, even while you are offline.
I hope this clarifies matters to you and please let us know if you have any further questions.

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