Understanding how file downloading settings operate across different levels—company-wide, within workspaces, and in Portals—is important for file control and management.

This article delves into each level, detailing the options available, default settings, and how administrators can navigate and customize download permissions to suit their needs.

Downloading can be controlled at the company level, which overrides all download controls at the workspace, portal, and individual user levels. Company administrators set this in the Security settings.

First, navigate to the settings page by clicking on the company name on the top left of the screen, and selecting Company & Admin.

In the admin settings page, select the Security tab, then Upload & Download. The company-wide Downloading controls are found under the Download & Export Restrictions section of the Security settings.

There are 3 options available to restrict downloading:

The first (No company-wide download restrictions) is selected by default. CoLab provides controls specific to restricted workspaces as well, separate from all other workspaces.

When you create a new workspace, downloading is disabled by default. However, both workspace owners and company admins have the authority to enable downloading for all members of the workspace. Once activated, any user within the workspace can download any file. It's important to note that downloading cannot be enabled on a per-file or per-user basis.

Start by accessing your Workspace Settings either from the settings icon on the workspace homepage, or from the settings icon in the workspace navigation menu.

With the workspace settings opened, select or the Download section. Here you will find the Allow file downloading and feedback exporting option. Toggling this setting ON will allow users to download files from the workspace, as well as export file feedback.

By default, downloading is disabled in a Portal. However, it can only be enabled if downloading is also enabled for the corresponding Workspace, a setting controlled by either a Workspace or Company Admin. If downloading is enabled for the Workspace, a Portal Admin can enable downloading within the Portal from the Portal Settings page.

First navigate to the Portal Settings page either from the settings icon on the poratl homepage, or from the settings icon in the portal navigation menu.

Under the General tab on the Portals settings page, you can select the Enable file downloading and feedback exporting option, and then Save changes.