University at Buffalo (UB)
Choose UBbox for easy file sharing and collaboration with anyone
Published October 13, 2017 This content is archived.
UBbox is free, unlimited, and more secure than your average cloud storage, making it the perfect choice for UB students, faculty and staff. But where UBbox really excels is in how easy it makes file sharing and collaborating.
Share files with anyone
You can send anyone a link to download files from your UBbox account. From the web interface, just find the file or folder they want to download, click the ‘Share’ button, and copy the link. Once you send them the link, they’ll be able to download to their device.
If you’re sending the file to someone who doesn’t work or study at UB—meaning they don’t have a UBbox account—just switch ‘People in your company’ to ‘People with the link’ in the drop-down menu below the link. That way you can send the link to anybody in the world, and they’ll be able to download your file.
For more customization, click the gear icon above the link. From there you can make a custom URL for sharing, set your link to expire on a specific date or enable anyone with the link to view your file but not download it.
From sharing to collaborating
Sharing a link gives someone the option to download a copy of your file. But you can also work on the same document with someone in UBbox by adding them as a collaborator on the folder in UBbox where the file is stored.
To add someone as a collaborator when you make a new folder, make sure ‘Invite people to upload or download files’ is checked, then type the email address of the person you want to collaborate with.
You’ll also need to choose their access level. Viewer/Uploaders, Editors and Co-Owners all have the ability to edit any files within the folder. You can see a full list of access types and their permissions on the UBIT website.
To invite collaborators to an existing folder, go into the folder in the web interface and select the ‘Share this Folder’ button to the right. From the dropdown menu, select ‘Invite Collaborators’ and enter the names of email addresses of anyone you want to edit or comment on your documents.
As with sharing files, you can invite anyone to collaborate—they don’t need to be at UB. If they aren’t at UB, they’ll get a message with your invite asking them to sign up for a free box.com account so they can collaborate.
UBbox makes online collaboration and file sharing with anyone easy. If you haven’t already, log into your UBbox account and give it a try.