recipient account

Hi Pat, 

Welcome to the Box Community, I'm happy to help!

There are a couple of ways on how you can share documents to others with Box. You can share files using "Shared link" or "Invite Collaborators".

A collaborator is an individual who has been invited to a file or folder. Collaboration invites are a great way to share content for long term projects. This will allow you to invite people to a file or folder and monitor updates over time. In order to access a file or folder as a collaborator, a person will need a Box account so they have to be logged in to Box or signup for one. The file or folder will be listed under All Files when they log in to their Box account. 

• You can invite an individual into a file or folder as a collaborator if you are actively working with them on long-term projects. Collaboration provides a two-way relationship; depending on their access level, collaborators can view, edit, upload/download documents, leverage collaboration tools (comments, tasks, etc.), and receive updates on actions taking place in the folder. 

If your recipients do not need edit access, and "Read-only" access is sufficient enough, then I would suggest using "Shared links" instead.

A shared link on the other hand is a unique URL that gives the recipient to access a specific file or folder. With customizable permission levels, security settings, and a URL that’s easy to copy and paste, shared links can be used to send important content both internally and externally. Unlike collaboration, individuals accessing your content through a shared link get "read-only" access and won’t be able to make changes to your files. 

Please check our community article here which provides a detailed explanation about the differences between these two.

If you have any further questions, please let me know and I will do my best to help!

Best Regards, 

Thanks for the information, I want to know why the link I was sent was not operable.