Set a subfolder to read-only without having to relocate?

👋 Hi ​@jyannuzzi, welcome to the Box Community! To answer your question:

No -- not if the subfolder is inheriting Editor access from its parent.

Box uses inherited, waterfall-style permissions. That means access granted at a parent folder flows down to its subfolders. So if your company-wide parent location gives everyone Editor access, you cannot make just one subfolder read-only in place by lowering permissions only on that subfolder.

The key limitation is:

• You can increase access at a subfolder relative to the parent
• You cannot decrease inherited access at a subfolder relative to the parent

So in your scenario, making the old subfolder read-only without moving it elsewhere is not supported if the parent remains broadly editable.

What that means practically:

• If the parent stays Editor for everyone, the subfolder will continue to inherit that edit access
• Changing that inherited permission at the subfolder level would affect the parent-level permission structure, not just that one subfolder
• To make the old content read-only, you would need a different structure, such as:
  • moving that content to a separate location with more restrictive permissions, or
  • changing permissions higher in the tree if that is acceptable

Please let us know if you have any other concerns.

I suspected that was the answer but was hoping for some workaround that I hadn’t thought of. Thank you.

You’re very welcome!

I’d also recommend submitting this as a feature request in Box Pulse to help improve folder structure and permissions. Our Product Team reviews feature requests and product feedback to better understand user needs, so your input would be valuable. 🙌