Can Dropbox prevent you opening a file someone already has open?

[stephen_]

Hello there. My small design studio are all working off Dropbox for our server. We are on Macs, have the Dropbox app installed and access our files via Finder. We regularly work on the same files and I've noticed that we can all have the same file open at once, and won't get a warning until we hit Save. This is not ideal. Is it possible to set Dropbox to prevent you from opening a file that someone already has open? Thanks in advance for any help.

[Hannah · Accepted solution]

Hey @stephen_, thanks for posting your question today.

When it comes to MS Office files, you can use the Dropbox Badge, so you know when someone else is on a file.

For other kinds of files, there are a couple of workarounds.

Dropbox Business and Professional users have the file locking option available for such cases.

Another thing you could do, is move the file you're working on to a different folder, so your team mates know not to work on the particular file.

Once you're done, you can move it back to its original folder.

I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any questions!

[stephen_]

Hi Hannah. Thanks for your reply.

It's mostly InDesign files that I'm wanting this for. 'File Locking' sounds like what I'm after, but I've just checked and I don't have the Lock/Unlock Editing option when I right-click my file (screenshot below). We have a Professional/Business account, and I've logged into the Dropbox Admin console for my team and confirmed that File Locking is enabled there, so I'm not sure why it's not appearing. 

I just noticed the line about "Only files in shared folders can be locked." Possibly that's why? If so, that seems impractical/fiddly. My team already has access to the files, so I don't want to share them. When I've worked off local servers, if someone has the file open it's locked by default, and Finder just says "Sorry, file is open". I've got no idea what the code is doing in the background, but it's simple, works well, and ensures multiple people don't have the file open at once. You don't have to do anything. 

I know it's not simple, but would be great if Dropbox had similar functionality. 🙂

[stephen_]

Hi again,

I just realised that all my team are logged in as the same user, which is why we're not classified as sharing files, which is why the Lock option isn't there. Fortunately we are just about to transtion to individual user accounts, and I just did a test and the 'Lock Editing' action is there, so all good! Just got a bit confused about sharing files in a shared folder. 

Thanks again for your help.