Understanding your company's folder structure and necessary user access is the first step to knowing how to apply (or restrict) permissions to folders. Once you've determined your needs, you can begin to customize access.
Egnyte recommends starting with the minimum access on the top-level folders and granting more access (permissions) to sub-folders.
While turning off inheritance and removing permissions both have their benefits, use the examples below to see which option works best for your situation.
Turn off Permission Inheritance vs Remove Permissions
Turning off inheritance is often a safer and easier way to restrict access to a specific sub-folder inside a Project folder (parent folder) while still allowing access to the rest of the sub-folders within the Project folder.
Removing permissions is useful when you need to completely revoke a user or groups access. You can also remove permissions when only one folder in the "tree" needs to have limited access.
In our example, Karen from HR has been tasked with adding the newest employee, Jared, to the appropriate Project Alpha folders. If Karen's predecessor removed permissions to the sub-folders Finance and Budget and Performance Reviews, instead of turning off inheritance, Jared would automatically be granted access to all of the sub-folders when added to Project Alpha. Karen would need to remember to manually remove him from those sub-folders.
If her predecessor had turned off inheritance for the restricted sub-folders, Jared would have been excluded from Finance and Budget and Performance Reviews when Karen added him to Project Alpha.
When inheritance is turned off, anyone that needs access to the restricted folders will need to be explicitly given the permission.
Additional Resources