Remove collaborators that are no longer employed at our firm,

Hi ​@Kathy Serksnis, thank you for reaching out about this issue. I'm glad you've already ruled out browser and cache issues. Let me explain what's happening and how your Box Admin can resolve it.

The grayed-out dropdown is a permissions issue, and the "Remove" option is only available to users who have Owner or Co-Owner access on the folder, or to a Box Admin acting through the Admin Console. If the person trying to remove the collaborator doesn't have the right permission level on that specific file or folder, the option will be unavailable.

Additionally, when a user account is deleted in Box, their name is replaced with "Prior Collaborator" or "Anonymous User" in the UI, but their collaboration entries on folder-level items are not automatically removed. This is by design: Box preserves folder-level collaborations even after a user is deleted, which is why those entries are still visible.

✅ How your Box Admin can clean this up?

Use Content Manager (Recommended)

This is the most direct path for an Admin to remove former collaborators at scale:

1. Go to Admin Console → Content
2. Select the Content Manager tab
3. Select Users
4. Expand the folder tree for the relevant user (the content owner)
5. Navigate to the file or folder with the former collaborator listed
6. Hover over the item and select Manage Collaborators (the people icon)
7. In the Collaborators dialog, you'll see all users with access, including deactivated users
8. Under the Permissions column, change the access level or select Remove

📌 See Managing Collaborators of a User's Files and Folders to learn more

Manage via sharing in the Admin Console

Admins can also navigate directly to a folder through the Admin Console's sharing interface:

1. Go to Admin Console → Content
2. Navigate to the folder in question
3. Open the collaborators list on the right sidebar
4. Click the former collaborator's access level and select Remove

If your Admin follows the Content Manager steps above and still cannot remove the former collaborators, this may be a break-fix issue worth escalating. Please have your Admin submit a support ticket with:

• The file/folder IDs affected
• Screenshots of the grayed-out option
• The email addresses of the former collaborators (as they appear in Box)

Thank you, and feel free to reach out if you have any other concerns.​