Block file download in OneDrive For Business

When you share a file from your OneDrive for Business, maybe you don’t want recipients to download the file? In today’s short post, that’s what we are going to do!

Share a file and block the download

To share a file, you can select your file, and click on the ellipses (…), then click on Share

Once the pop-up window opens, click on the permissions box, and choose your permission model.

At the bottom, you can see Block Download. To enable this, uncheck the box in Allow Editing, and toggle on the Block Download option. Then, click on Apply, and enter your recipient name (if not done already) + a message (optional)

Finally, click Send.
 

What’s happening on the recipient’s side?

Now let’s check how this looks like from the recipient’s point of view. Logging in with the user’s account, he/she receives an email with a link to the shared document:

Clicking on “Open” from the email, the document opens in the online application (Word, Excel, etc…), and a yellow banner is warning you and you don’t have any option to download nor print the file!

Thanks for reading!