Why isn't a shared Dropbox folder deleted in other people's Dropbox when I delete it?

Question

In Dropbox I created a folder and shared it with my wife. I placed items in there and soon she had them in the shared folder on her computer. I then deleted the folder inside my dropbox folder, but she still has it, still full of all that was in it. It also still exists in her account on the dropbox.com website.

Shouldn't my deleting that folder make it disappear from her Dropbox folder? Or am I missing something basic?

Answer 1

When you delete a folder, than only the files from your account will be deleted. But the other ones who have loaded the shared-folder will keep their files. As long as day won't delete it by theirselfs.

To delete it from any folder, you have to unshare it. Otherwise they will keep their files.

So your wife has to unfollow the folder or has to delete the files by hand.

Answer 2

No, it won't be deleted by you deleting the shared folder. You have to first unshare the folder, then it would be deleted (unless she's made copies, of course!) What you did was to essentially delete your copy of it. Reference at https://www.dropbox.com/help/156/en

Answer 3

You cannot delete the root of a folder from someone else's account, that is you cannot delete a "share" from their computer and account via yours. Hence even unsharing means they still have the files, you simply are not sync'd any more

But you can delete all the files IN a shared folder and those changes would propagate to all the other members of the share. This means you can help your wife by deleting the files which would free up the space. But the folder itself would have to be removed from your wife's computer.

So to do what you want, you simply create a folder, in a folder, in the Dropbox folder. Currently. you have "Collaborative Folder" that is a folder and a share you want to delete. Instead, you create a folder say "Joint" that is also the share "Joint", then in that you create "Collaborative Folder". Now you can delete the "Collaborative Folder" folder leaving an empty "Joint" Folder.

Another option is to use the same account. My wife and I use a single account so what I do, deleting shares for example, she sees because we use the same account.