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Box folder permissions when adding new subfolders

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Jacob Gillis

With Box folder permissions handled in a waterfall manner, any new subfolders added inherit permissions from the parent folder. The best-practices shared from Box indicates that, in order to have users have changed permissions in a subfolder, the user should first be added to the subfolder at the higher permission, and then added to the parent folder(s) at the lower permission level. This works if you are creating an entirely new folder structure from parent down to subfolders and can add users from scratch.

If you are creating new subfolders in an existing folder structure though, they automatically inherit the parent permissions. Changing the user permissions in this subfolder pushes the changes up the entire parent tree and out, completely breaking any other permission settings in that folder tree. 

What this suggests to me is that any time a new subfolder is needed you must either be okay with the existing permission settings or, if changes are needed, you must strip access across the entire folder tree and re-add, all for one subfolder change, i.e. completely rebuilding the folder tree.

Is there any way to set up a different permission set-up in a subfolder of an already-existing folder structure that has different permission settings? Or do I have to completely rebuild the permissions settings for the entire folder structure every time I want to add a subfolder?

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6 comments

Date Votes
  • Rona
    • Edited

    Hi Jacob, 

    Welcome to Box Community and I'm here to help! 

    As of this writing, we don't have an alternate workaround to exclude your newly created sub-folder to the settings already in place from the parent folder.

    My recommendation for the time being is to submit this as a feature request or upvote here and we apologize for the limitation. 

    Thanks for posting! 

     

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  • Alex Scothern

    It's absolutely mind-blowing that there isn't yet an ability to manage permissions per subfolder. Deviating from a logical and traditional organization of folders, having to make additional parent folders is insane. 

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  • Ihsan Gin

    this is, for lack of a better term, ridiculous. it encourages creating hundreds of separate folders ILO keeping organized folders without the ability to break waterfall permissions. 

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  • Edgar Salas

    Any progress here? I see the initial enhancement request was submitted almost 10 years ago! Mind blown...

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  • Russ Debenport

    Agreed. This one-size fits all approach to cascading permissions creates significant headaches and lack of content controls. How can this still be the limitations of BOX in 2025? BOX, you can do better than this. 

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  • Alex Scothern

    Don't forget to upvote this issue, ya'll; I'm the one and only upvote at this time despite multiple commenters.

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