Customizing Share Links

Share Links are designed with flexibility in mind. Your users can configure individual share links, and site administrators can update site-wide settings to set sensible defaults. In some cases, site-wide settings will prevent users from making certain selections.

By default, Files.com generates a random alphanumeric URL key for your Share Links. This prevents bad actors from guessing the address of your links. You might want to use this for a Share Link that you intend to make public because a friendly name may be easier to share with others, either verbally or through marketing materials.

A custom URL may offer convenience, but also carries security risks because it has the potential to be guessed in the same way that common passwords do. For this reason, site administrators have the option to disable custom URLs for all Share Links.

The audience for your Share Link will usually be people who do not use your Files.com site on a regular basis. Their interface is designed to be clutter-free, to cut down on any decisions your user needs to make. You may need to provide extra information or instructions to your contacts, such as whom to contact if there are problems with downloaded files, which TPS reports need to be submitted, and any other frequently asked questions.

You can add a publicly visible description to each link, which your share visitors will see. You may format this text using Markdown, but not HTML.

When a Share Link is unavailable for a visitor, you can customize the message that is displayed to them. This is a helpful place to publish the contact information your counterparties need to get assistance. You may use Markdown for formatting the message, but HTML tags are not allowed for security reasons.

A Share Link may be unavailable for a variety of reasons: the publish date is in the future, the expiration date is in the past, the maximum number of recipients has accessed the link, the link has been revoked, and so on.

Depending on how your organization uses Files.com, your users may create dozens or even hundreds of Share Links they need to manage. The internal note associated with each link provides a convenient means for tracking its purpose. You can store any custom text, such as a reminder about the associated project (e.g. "RFPs for Riverside") or a summary of its contents (such as "Preview product videos"). Visitors to a Share Link will not see the text you enter as an internal note - it is only visible to internal users.

Share Link creators can always see and change the internal note for their links. In addition, site administrators can enable a site setting to Require internal notes. When that setting is enabled, Share Link creators cannot leave the internal note blank when they are saving a Share Link.

By default, each link allows visitors to download the contents. Each Share Link can be configured to allow different levels of access, depending on your needs.

For live Share Links, you can select between 5 options for the allowed actions, ranging from only allowing previews to allowing full file management. You can only assign allowed actions that are permitted by your own privileges. For example, if you have download access but not upload access, you cannot create a share link that allows visitors to upload.

A Share Link that allows only uploads will function very similarly to an Inbox. The visitor can upload items but cannot view any of the files that have been uploaded. In order to allow uploads, you must include at least one folder path in your share link, and you cannot include any file paths. When a visitor to a Share Link that allows only uploads tries to upload items with duplicated names, the duplicates will be automatically renamed, even if your site's settings would allow overwrites from logged-in users.

Rather than using the Allowed actions of a Share Link to potentially enable both downloads and uploads for a visitor, you could instead opt to associate an Inbox with the Share Link. This allows you to provide restricted (only previews or downloading) access to the items you are sharing while also providing a location for uploads.

For snapshot Share Links, you can select between allowing visitors to preview only or to download.

Users can never create a Share Link that gives more access than they have. For example, if a user account does not have permissions to upload to a folder, they cannot create a Share Link that allows visitors to upload.

If a user is assigned non-recursive sharing permissions on a folder, any subfolders for that folder will not be shared when the folder is shared. Similarly, if a permission fence is placed on a folder below a folder the user has permission to share, the fenced folder can't be shared.

You can add a watermark to any preview generated in a Share Link. The automatic watermarks are only displayed when previewing the file on the Share Link page. If the file is downloaded, then it will not contain the automatic watermark. This can be useful to avoid screenshots when your link supports previews only.