Folder Move Confirmation in Desktop App for Windows - Limited Availability

Overview

Folder move confirmation helps prevent accidental drag and drop moves of folders on the Egnyte drive in File Explorer. This feature is  available starting with Desktop App for Windows v 4.8.0. In File Explorer, a folder can be moved with a single drag and drop. That makes it easy to move a folder by accident, and the mistake is often not noticed right away. With folder move confirmation turned on, Desktop App asks users to confirm before File Explorer moves a folder on the Egnyte drive. The move starts only after the user confirms. If the user cancels, nothing changes and the folder stays where it was.

Use Case and Benefits

Folder move confirmation is designed to react only to manual actions by a user in File Explorer, such as an accidental drag and drop. It is not meant to interfere with applications that move folders as part of their normal work (see Limitations for exceptions). These moves are made directly through the file system and bypass the Windows shell file operation that File Explorer uses, so they never trigger the confirmation Examples include:

• Applications that move or save files and folders as part of their own operation, such as CAD and Office applications
• Command-line tools and scripts, such as PowerShell Move-Item and other third party tools
• Backup and synchronization software

This means the feature is safe to use to prevent manual mistakes. Applications, scheduled tasks and unattended sessions continue to work as before, and the confirmation is never shown in a service, a headless run or an unattended session. There is one limitation to this design that administrators should review before enabling the feature. See the Limitations section below.

What Triggers the Confirmation

The confirmation appears when a user moves a folder inside the Egnyte drive in File Explorer by any of these methods:

• Dragging and dropping the folder into another folder
• Cutting the folder and pasting it into another folder
• Dragging the folder with the right mouse button and choosing Move here

If several items are selected and at least one of them is a folder, Desktop App shows one confirmation for the whole selection, not one for each folder. 

What User Sees

When a move is started, Desktop App shows a dialog asking whether to proceed. The move waits until the user answers.

• Move: the folder is moved
• Cancel: the move is cancelled. Pressing Esc or closing the dialog also cancels the move

When the Confirmation Does not Appear

The confirmation does not pop-up in following cases:

• Copying and pasting a folder: A copy creates new content and does not change the original folder.
• Moving files only: If the selection contains no folders, no confirmation is shown.
• Moving a folder into Egnyte Drive from a local disk: The folder comes from outside Egnyte Drive, so no existing Egnyte folder is moved.
• Moving a folder out of Egnyte Drive to a different drive: This includes moving to a local disk. Windows treats this as a copy followed by a delete, not as a move.
• Renaming or deleting a folder: These actions do not move a folder to a new location.
• Folder names and count are not shown: The confirmation cannot list the names or the number of the folders being moved.
• A single confirmation for multiple folders:: When several folders are moved to the same destination in one operation, the first confirmation applies to the rest of the selection.
• Egnyte Drive only: The confirmation applies to Egnyte Drive only. It does not apply to Connected Folders or to moves on local disks.
• Cancelling does not undo earlier moves: If a move is cancelled while a selection is being processed, items already moved before the first folder was reached are not moved back. 

Limitations

Cannot identify who started a move

• Desktop App cannot yet tell whether a move comes from a user or from an application that uses the same Windows shell file operation as File Explorer.
• Desktop App shows the confirmation by hooking into that Windows shell file operation (an ICopyHook shell extension). Most applications and scripts do not use it, but some do, and Desktop App cannot currently tell them apart from a user working in File Explorer. As a result, a folder move started by an application or a custom script that uses the Windows shell file operation, for example through the Shell.Application object in a PowerShell or VBScript script, can also trigger the confirmation. In that case:
  • The confirmation appears and the move waits until it is answered.
  • If the move is cancelled or left unanswered, the application or script that started it may report an error or stop.
• Egnyte is working on recognizing which application started the move, so that only moves made by users in File Explorer are confirmed. Until then, administrators should review the scripts and applications that move folders on the Egnyte drive and check whether they use the Windows shell file operation. If they do, test them with the feature turned on before enabling it widely.