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Forum Discussion
Follow folder option grayed out - shared folders, business account
Hello. A similar thread started in 2021 was a dead end and has degenerated into other discussions so I thought I'd start over with this topic.
My boss asked me to figure out why the "Follow" option was grayed out on his shared folders (viewed from the ... menu in the online view), while in my account, I was able to choose Follow and set up email notifications with no problem. I thought that was weird because even though he's not the account admin, the boss should have, if anything, more capabilities than the office peon.
A comment in the previous discussion indicated he may not have all his preferences set correctly. In the desktop app, I located the preferences, & took a screenshot of what mine looked like (all of the notifications checked). Before emailing the pic to him, though, I unchecked all the preferences to test that I was sending him the right solution. I hit apply, then OK. Voila, no more Follow option in the online version. Excellent... I have found the source of the issue, right!?! But not so fast. I put the preferences back the way they were... apply... ok... NO FOLLOW OPTION. It remained greyed out. Restarted without success. I do not want to try uninstalling and reinstalling as I own lots of important folders and am scared of what might happen. And I should not have to do that, it's just a preference! Right? Any ideas out there for getting my Follow back?
I'm using Chrome, if it matters.
I found a partial fix that worked on my Windows 11 machine with chrome. I was trying to follow a folder (named "personal") that belonged only to me (which seems silly, since I know when I personally change files in my own folder, but I have a Microsoft Excel worksheet with vba code running that saves the file every few hours, and I want to know when it has updated the file. As you can see, "Follow" is grayed out!!!
I was able to solve this problem for a folder that belongs only to me, so I would recommend practicing these steps on a folder that belongs only to you first, to get practice:
Step 1: Log into dropbox on the web or click on the globe icon just to the right of the folder icon up there...
and then click on "Home"
(For me, the folder I wanted to follow showed up as a "Recent" one.. if it's not recent, do what you need to do to get it to show up as a "Recent" folder.)
Step 2: When you see the folder you are interested in, hover just to the left of the "..." and "share" will appear:
(or both "Share" and "Open" may appear...)
Click on "Share".
Step 3: Click on the "settings" gear up on top of the pop-up that appears, (NOT the word settings... that little gear in the upper right next to the X). (Keep in mind that my folder is named "personal", so your screenshot will have a different folder name there.)
Step 4: You will now get this pop-up: For "Manage access," click on "Only the owner" and set viewer info to "on" and then Save. NOTE: If "save" is grayed out, that means you haven't changed anything. So I recommend toggling the "Only the owner" back to "Folder members" until it lets you Save. (This is why I recommended you try this out on a folder belonging only to yourself first, to get the hang of it and to see if it actually works.) You may need to toggle it a second time to "Only the owner" so you save it with that setting.
Step 5: At this point, when you go back to look at your folders, you'll see the folder icon has changes from a blank blue folder to a folder with a sharing icon. Remember, this is a file only I have access to ! In the screen shot below, the top file "Paycheck" is not shared, but the bottom file named "personal" is shared.
Step 6: Now, when you go to click on the "..." to the far right, you'll be able to click "Activity" and "Follow" (I hope!) It's no longer grayed out!!!
Step 7: It'll give you a little menu of what you want to be notified about. Here's how mine was set...
(Optional Step 8: To test it, click the "..." and "activity" and "following" and this time, unfollow it just to prove to yourself that this feature actually works!)
(Optional Step 9: Okay, go back and toggle it back to following... I hope when you try to follow it again, it actually works!)
Step 10, maybe?: I didn't try this on a shared folder, so it may not work, but if you go back to step #4, and toggle the "manage access" from "Only the owner" back to "Folder members", I think your folder will still retain the blue, shared folder icon, and therefore allow you to follow it:
I found a partial fix that worked on my Windows 11 machine with chrome. I was trying to follow a folder (named "personal") that belonged only to me (which seems silly, since I know when I personally change files in my own folder, but I have a Microsoft Excel worksheet with vba code running that saves the file every few hours, and I want to know when it has updated the file. As you can see, "Follow" is grayed out!!!
I was able to solve this problem for a folder that belongs only to me, so I would recommend practicing these steps on a folder that belongs only to you first, to get practice:
Step 1: Log into dropbox on the web or click on the globe icon just to the right of the folder icon up there...
and then click on "Home"
(For me, the folder I wanted to follow showed up as a "Recent" one.. if it's not recent, do what you need to do to get it to show up as a "Recent" folder.)
Step 2: When you see the folder you are interested in, hover just to the left of the "..." and "share" will appear:
(or both "Share" and "Open" may appear...)
Click on "Share".
Step 3: Click on the "settings" gear up on top of the pop-up that appears, (NOT the word settings... that little gear in the upper right next to the X). (Keep in mind that my folder is named "personal", so your screenshot will have a different folder name there.)
Step 4: You will now get this pop-up: For "Manage access," click on "Only the owner" and set viewer info to "on" and then Save. NOTE: If "save" is grayed out, that means you haven't changed anything. So I recommend toggling the "Only the owner" back to "Folder members" until it lets you Save. (This is why I recommended you try this out on a folder belonging only to yourself first, to get the hang of it and to see if it actually works.) You may need to toggle it a second time to "Only the owner" so you save it with that setting.
Step 5: At this point, when you go back to look at your folders, you'll see the folder icon has changes from a blank blue folder to a folder with a sharing icon. Remember, this is a file only I have access to ! In the screen shot below, the top file "Paycheck" is not shared, but the bottom file named "personal" is shared.
Step 6: Now, when you go to click on the "..." to the far right, you'll be able to click "Activity" and "Follow" (I hope!) It's no longer grayed out!!!
Step 7: It'll give you a little menu of what you want to be notified about. Here's how mine was set...
(Optional Step 8: To test it, click the "..." and "activity" and "following" and this time, unfollow it just to prove to yourself that this feature actually works!)
(Optional Step 9: Okay, go back and toggle it back to following... I hope when you try to follow it again, it actually works!)
Step 10, maybe?: I didn't try this on a shared folder, so it may not work, but if you go back to step #4, and toggle the "manage access" from "Only the owner" back to "Folder members", I think your folder will still retain the blue, shared folder icon, and therefore allow you to follow it:
Thanks, petieboy778! It works for me with folders shared among several people. I hope it will work for others in my organization who are not the owner of the folder.
But, Dropbox Admins, why does it have to be so convoluted? Why even offer the follow option in the folder menu if it doesn't work?
Same thing happens with Edge, Firefox, and Chrome Incognito mode.
More weird stuff. After checking whether I could get the Following option in Edge, Firefox, and Chrome Incognito (no luck with any of them), it started working again - about an hour later - in regular Chrome.
Next I did another repeat of the sequence of unchecking all notifications in Preferences, applying the settings, checking to make sure Follow was no longer available, re-checking all notifications, and applying the settings. This time, even after letting it sit for a good half hour so the settings would refresh, the Follow option did not reappear. So I went back through the sequence of checking for Follow capabilities in Edge, Firefox, Incognito again. No luck in those and no luck in regular Chrome. Screen refresh - no luck. Restarting again now and will report back.
