You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
view only link for everyone says Join Folder, Copy to Dropbox, Download. I DON'T want Join Folder.
I create printables I share on Etsy, and because the files are so large, I send a dropbox folder link. It USED to be that the page the link went to would have the choices at top Copy to Dropbox and Download ONLY. Now every link has Join Folder, Copy to Dropbox, and Download. I keep getting email requests to join the folder, which is really annoying. I just want someone to be able to download the files, and that's it. I cannot figure out for the life of me how to make the Join Folder go away! I've tried everything I can think of and nothing changes. I'm going crazy.
Problem:
The "Join Folder" button creates too many emails when our clients click on it. It also creates confusion on their side. Should they Join? Should they Download? Why haven't we allowed them to join?
It wasn't like that for many years, the sudden change is disrupting our workflow.
Solutions:
- [preferred] There is a toggle in settings to disallow Join and Download, split the toggle in two, so we can allow Download and hide Join
- Remove the Join Folder button from view-only links
See the multitude of people wanting this to work: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Create-upload-and-share/view-only-link-for-everyone-says-Join-Folder-Copy-to-Dropbox/m-p/734886#M78631
The post marked as a solution isn't a solution.
This issue should be fixed as soon as possible, it's frustrating our clients and our whole team. Our team is starting to demand us using another provider.
Dropbox, please, please fix this.
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey guys!
We listen to your needs because it allows us to fully appreciate how Dropbox fits into and influences your daily routine.
For that reason, your comments on this have been quite helpful, and I will do everything I can to ensure that your voice is heard.
I'll forward your feedback to the appropriate areas so we can continue to improve.
Thanks!
JasonSilverDBXDropbox Product Manager
Hi Jason,
Thanks for letting us all know; this is great news! I appreciate you and the team willing to listen to customer feedback! 👍🏽
- JasonSilverDBX
Absolutely GilesR32! We employ a variety of methods to determine what is and isn't working for our users. These forums are a valuable source of direct and deep feedback on how you all are using Dropbox and absolutely impacts our product decisions. Please continue to stay engaged!
Thank you for listening to our concerns!
awesome to hear, this has been very annoying I have heaps of folders shared with random people asking to join my folders all the time. thanks for removing it soon, this will be great!
Dropbox, this is a broken feature, with inconsistent user experience, and got rolled out to impact your customers who are paying for your service without articulating what it means or how to opt out. Just ROLL IT BACK. Telling from earlier replies to this thread, you clearly have no idea how your users are using folder sharing for their business like these who sell digital downloads. Sharing a view-only link while keeping Share Folder disabled is a clear indication the user doesn't want others to join the folder, and your Join Folder (and even highlighted) just turns the folder shared, and then Unshare Folder just breaks all past linkes shared. This is ridiculous design with rookie mistakes. Whoever designed this and pushed this rollout should just take the responsibility to roll it back for your users, give peace back to your users, and then re-work on this half-baked stuff.
- I have been in contact with support, and unfortunately, they were absolutely unhelpful. They told me to clear the app's cache, as if I didn't know that it has nothing to do with the current problem. It's just insane. This new "update" is only making everything worse and more inconvenient.
SAME , support was not trained or aware of this new changes
I too wish to remove the "Join Folder" option. Just like the original poster, I am sharing a folder to patrons for download only, not collaboration. I do not want people sending me Join requests all the time. I am a paying Dropbox customer and I would like to see a new permission added so this can be changed or so the requests can be automatically declined. Thank you.
YES! Thank you. Just like ALL the other folks on this thread, my years-long workflow has been disrupted. I look unprofessional in the eyes of the very large photography client I've had for 9 years because the link I'm using to share files has this confusing JOIN button.
I'm sharing this folder with 2000 people who all need to access my folder, navigate to a subfolder to find ONE photo, and download just that ONE photo. So this "transfer" option is absolutely not practical.
Does anyone know of a good alternative to dropbox? I'm ready to jump ship over this.Agreed on all of your points, Dropbox are COMPLETELY missing the point here. You should be consulting customers before you make these sorts of changes, not making them and then causing issues for users. We are paying so much for software which is increasingly becoming bad for our use-case. If anyone has alternative suggestions I am all ears.
Please vote for the change here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Remove-quot-Join-Folder-quot-from-view-only-links-or-allow-to/idi-p/735118
I have created a post on the Idea Board. Let's get it some traction since the forum is not reviewed by developers much...
Fairsarae takeiteasylab HelpHannah samirj UTHammy chougulu Kommandant86 27teacups janice259 k76 authorsjuliusincestus SnowRiver personanongrata
I hate this. I almost let strangers with links join some of my folders by accident and they probably clicked on that stupid join folder by accident as well. If this change is not not removed, I'll just look for alternative share/storage solutions soon.
- JasonSilverDBX
Hi Fairsarae,
I am a Product Manager for Sharing here at Dropbox, and I'm sorry the recent change we've made to Folder Links with View Only access have been driving you crazy! This is certainly not what we intended. There is another recent forum post where I address this in a bit more detail, along with a suggestion involving Dropbox Transfer.
Jay could we consolidate this thread with this other one in progress here?
Fairsarae take a look at my latest response there and let me know your thoughts?
- I think this change makes it very confusing for the recipient of the link. I have never had this issue until the past month. Now I keep getting emails that so and so wants to join your folder. For how Dropbox has it set up now, it makes the recipient think they have join the folder in order to get the file(s), but really they don't have to if they just want to download the files. Maybe Dropbox needs to make it more clear that joining a folder is just an option and not mandatory.
- Janice259, exactly. I’m so confused on the other ways suggested too; I just want to be able to grab the Dropbox link from the folder and go. I’m thinking maybe putting in large capital letters on the link download page IGNORE JOIN FOLDER. My workflow was so efficient before this change.
I have a newsletter and when they sign up, they are being led to a dropbox folder. I want them to be able to download, but I don't like that the join folder option is there, even if they cannot join. I can't figure out a way to remove that option though. How do I remove it? I did it with another pen name I have, but I don't remember what I did exactly.
As you can see above, when I set a link for viewing a folder for my Patreon members, I am presented with these boxes above; how do I go about removing the 'Join Folder' box? I've verified in the folder settings that the link is view-only, with no link for editing. I don't recall this happening until this month.
So what you're saying is that there is no way to remove the Join Folder option now? You suggest Dropbox Transfer, but that's an additional charge? I already pay $31.98/month.
- JasonSilverDBX
Fairsarae, no I wouldn't suggest that a change we made to shared links should push you into an upsell. Definitely not the intention at all. I believe since you're on a paid plan, you should have unlimited to file transfers up to 2GB included in your plan. If that's not the case, then I need to do better at my internal pricing research. Additionally, I added a few other alternative methods after my original reply to you in my post above.
This new 'upgrade' is a massive PITA!
I have link shares that I provide free photos to nearly 100,000 customers.
Guess how many annoying notifications I have to deal with.
(Turning off all notifications nor pausing notifications works - that's broke too)
Guess how many emails I have to delete - I shouldn't have to deal with the bludgeon of unsolicited emails on behalf of Dropbox.
I understand that this is a Dropbox marketing campaign.... but using existing customers to obtain emails from all of our customers is shady and not what any of us signed up for. 😡
As someone that is testing out Dropbox for use when sharing out digital products, I'm disappointed that this issue of "join folder" has been ongoing since October without any real follow up from support other than the "solution" which really isn't. I've followed the guides, I've adjusted and tweaked every possible share and manage setting and nothing changes.
Now I am only using the free version as I wanted to run through some test scenarios, so I thought maybe it was some of the limits the free account has in regards to setting changes, but it appears even those with paid accounts have this issue. Hopefully Dropbox will acknowledge the concern and work on a proper resolution soon.- otterandmoth I’m using Google Drive for sharing digital products now. It’s not integrated into my workflow like it was with Dropbox, but it’s a better option, now, in my opinion.
- Jay
Hi Fairsarae, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Could you check what the permissions are for the shared link?
Is it possible that you created a shared link with edit permissions, meaning it would become a shared folder?
This will help me to assist further!
No, not a shared folder. I've checked that multiple times, it's only me that has read and write privileges. Staff and everyone is read only. I tried locking the folder, that didn't work. This is a new issue; I haven't had it in the past. This is a link, for instance, where you can see the Join Folder. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/3xdgp4v5gdjp8ttplmpqd/h?rlkey=ix37w01xjl127xvv9pgxn4t75&dl=0
I've tried everything I can think of, to no avail. I've tried it in the browser, no luck. I'm currently using Google Drive for files as a substitute for now. I sell downloads on Etsy, and it's only been the most recent ones where I started getting emails saying a buyer wanted to join the folder.
