This guide explains how Infomaniak kDrive shares are displayed, depending on the type of share and the application used (Web or Desktop), including internal shares (between users of the same kDrive) and external shares (to users outside of kDrive).

Introduction

• Internal shares (between users of the same kDrive, point A below) are synchronizable on the desktop app.
  • Shared folders appear in a “Shared” folder on the desktop application and can be enabled/disabled in the synchronization settings.
  • Do not move or rename the “Shared” folders locally – this may break synchronization.
• External shares (to users outside of kDrive, point B below) are not synchronizable on the desktop app.
  • They have certain limitations.

A. Internal shares (between users of the same kDrive)

It is possible to share files or folders from your personal folder with other users of your kDrive, without going through the Organization Folders (shared folders). This allows you to precisely control access to your private data.

Steps to share a folder/file internally

1. In the kDrive web interface, one of the kDrive users right-clicks on the folder or file to be shared:
   
2. Select “Share folder”:
   
3. In the “kDrive Users” tab, enter the name of another user of the same kDrive:
   
4. Choose the permissions:
   
5. Close the sharing window.

Behavior in the desktop app

When an internal share is performed as described above, a folder named “Shared” automatically appears in the local tree of the desktop application for the user in question, here on macOS:

This folder contains all shared items and will therefore be synchronized with any changes subsequently made by the user who shared their data.

You can enable or disable the synchronization of this folder from the desktop application settings by clicking on the chevron next to the name of the synchronization folder (kDrive2 in the example below) to expand the tree of synchronized files, and by deselecting the “Shared” folder (do not forget to save the change):

B. External shares (to users outside the kDrive in question)

You can also share files or folders with people who are not part of your kDrive. These shares are called external shares.

Important: The external user must have an Infomaniak account (free or paid) to access the shared content. This is not a public link accessible to anyone.

Steps to share a folder/file externally

1. In the kDrive web interface, one of the kDrive users right-clicks on the folder or file to be shared (in this example, a subfolder of an already shared folder (as in point A above) will be shared; this has no impact).
2. Select “Share folder”:
   
3. In the “kDrive Users” tab, enter the email address of the external person (faq@ik.me in this example):
   
4. Click on the email address to add it, choose the user's permissions and an optional message, then click the button in the bottom right corner:
   
5. Select “External User” and click the button in the bottom right corner to send the invitation:
   
6. Close the sharing window.

Behavior in the web (and desktop) app

As long as the user does not check their emails, nothing will happen; the kDrive will not appear, neither in the Web app nor in the desktop app:

The user faq@ik.me checks their emails:

Once the sharing is accepted:

• The user is redirected to the page displaying the shared data within a restricted kDrive:
  
• To find them later, it may be necessary to first display “All Organizations” to make the sharing reappear, as it is not necessarily linked to the kDrives of the Organizations that the user already has access to:
  
• Then, the shared data will be visible in the “Shared with me” section:
  

These external shares are NOT synchronizable via the desktop app. No “Shared” folder appears locally for these shares.

The external user only accesses the files via the kDrive web interface (after logging into their Infomaniak account).

This ensures the security of the data shared with third parties while limiting the synchronization load on local computers.