Prevent download of shared file from OneDrive

Anonymous
2020-03-24T00:05:05+00:00
  1. In the home (personal) edition of OneDrive it is not possible to prevent download when I share a read-only file from the OneDrive. There is no option to block download at all. So when sharing any type of file with other people, they can download as much as they like!
  2. In the business edition of OneDrive it is possible to block download of Word, Excel, PowerPoint files - but NOT on any other file. This means that if I share a film, anybody can download the film to their computer. When I share music, anybody can download the music to their computer. And so on...

I find this really strange. It should be up to me to be able to stop any sort of download when sharing a file! I just want people to read, see or listen - nothing else!!

I know that through Google disk this is possible, but within the Microsoft Office 365 system this is really badly solved. How come? Why can Microsoft not make it possible for the owner to prevent download of any sort of file? (If Google can do it, Microsoft can do it - or is it hard to do this).

It really affects the need for protection of files being downloaded without control of the owner of the files! I just do not understand the logic behind this.

Microsoft, can you please add this possibility on both the personal and business edition of OneDrive! This has to do with protection of copyright on files! And within both subscriptions we are paying money to have our own personal OneDrive - so it should be up to the owner of the OneDrive to prevent any sort of download when sharing files.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2020-03-24T06:27:43+00:00

Hi Kjwathne,

Yes, you can prevent users from completely downloading the Office file only, then you must toggle the Block download option for view only links in Link Settings.

 

***Important:***There’s no option to block files from downloading if you are sharing an entire folder. This option is available only if share a single file.

As your concern to prevent users from downloading other files like video (mp4) and music file we totally understand the trouble at your end and we're sorry to say that we have limited resource, To address your concern about the situation, we’d suggest you kindly vote this UserVoice:. This is the best platform to let us hear from you and make our products and services better for you and others.

Your understanding and time will be highly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Waqas Muhammad

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-11-23T04:41:21+00:00

    Why can't you block download for the entire folder? This is massively inconvenient.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-11-23T17:55:07+00:00

    You are unable to block download for an MS Office file as well?

    Premium OneDrive will allow the blocking of a download only if it is an Excel/Word/PPT etc file. It will not allow blocking of download of regular mp3 or mp4 files. I have not tried it out for PDF documents.

    What I resorted to was pasting my videos into a PPT file and posting that PPT file on my OneDrive and blocking download for that. Those viewing my videos are unable to copy nor download the video when they are inside the PPT file. It is asinine that I have to go this far but it does the job.

    It is so shameful that the management team of this product focus on what they want and not what the customers want even for premium payers. I am not a developer so I do not understand the difficulty level in providing this feature for other files, but the way I see it, it only benefits them as we are forced to use MS office files to ensure our material is protected. Scumbag move in my opinion. Again, I don't have the full picture, but that is how it looks like to me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-12-22T13:42:00+00:00

    I found the solution!!!!!

    First go on your mp4 video and change the type of the file for example from movie.mp4 to movie.xls Then share the file movie.xls and block the download setting. After that go and change again from movie.xls to movie.mp4. You will see now that it works. You cant download the file

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-12-27T23:26:55+00:00

    Could you please help me understand where I can change the format from mp4 to xls format please? I don't see anything on OneDrive and I'm not sure how to do that on the original mp4 media file on my desktop either. Thank you in advance!

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