Hi there, 

Welcome to Box Community! 

As of this message, we don't have a way to break the waterfall permissions in the Box folders. If you are looking for a way to alter or change your collaborators permissions in sub-folder level. 

You can, however, give a collaborator a higher access level at a subfolder. To do this, first invite the collaborator to the subfolder, then invite the collaborator to the parent folder.  For example, you could invite John to the Marketing folder as an Co-Owner, then invite him to the Box Reports folder as a Viewer.

You may use the article Understanding Folder Permissions as your reference. 

Thanks for posting! 

I understand what I can do but does Box understand how much trouble this permissions structure creates for businesses?

What about, for instance, if I have a parent folder that I want an entire group to have access to but there is a subfolder 2 layers down that I don't want that group to have access to?

I only have two options. 

I would either have to go two levels down and assign permisions to that group on EVERY SINGLE FOLDER INDIVIDUALLY across that entire layer, or find a place to move that folder where only the exact people I want to have permissions to it already have permissions, but where NO ONE ELSE has permissions, or I have the same problem. 

What about a typical folder structure for projects that might be in the following format:

Location

      Project

          Logistics

          HR

          Plans and Specs

     Project 2

          Logistics

          HR

          Plans and Specs

     Project 3, etc, etc

Now imagine that I have a group that should have access to ALL those folders except Logistics.... and another group that should have all but Plans and Specs?

In a sane permission structure, (One, I would point out, that is used in Windows, Mac and almost all of Boxes competitors) I would assign the parent folder and then unassign just that one single folder from each group.

In the Box "waterfall" model, I have to go in to each of those folders and individually assign EVERY SINGLE FOLDER for EVERY SINGLE GROUP.

It's bonkers.

Glad to see someone as passionate about this as I am.  I just discovered this today.  It's absolutely mind-blowing that there isn't yet an ability to manage permissions per subfolder. Deviating from a logical and traditional organization of folders, having to make additional parent folders is insane. 

Do we have a solution on this?

Greetings,

I am having the same problem. It is indeed very unpractical.

Do they gave you any smart solution?

Best,

Gabriel