Purpose

The purpose of this tutorial is to teach you how to use the Bucket. By the time you have finished this tutorial, you should be able to upload, download, delete and share files via the Bucket.

How to access the bucket

To access a collab's bucket, open any collab of which you are a Team member and click on the "Bucket" element in the navigation menu on the left, as shown in the following screenshot.

Uploading a file/folder

After you have accessed the Bucket, you will have an option to upload either a file or a folder. The process is the same for either option. You can click either option or drag-and-drop files/folders from your desktop to the respective areas marked with dashed lines.

For users that click on "Upload folder" or "Upload files", a pop-up will appear to browse your computer; navigate to the folder/file you want to upload, select them, and confirm your selection. users having chosen drag-and-drop will skip directly to the next step.

You will now get the following screen.

You can see various features here. The first are the checkboxes on the top left. The first checkbox "only if local file is more recent" means that, if you have a file with the same name as a file already existing in the Bucket, the upload of that file will only occur and overwrite the existing file in the bucket if your local file has a more recent timestamp than the file already existing in the Bucket. The second checkbox "only if local file is a different size" will only allow the file to be uploaded if the file is of a different size to the one stored in the Bucket.

The purpose of these checkboxes is to make data transfer easier for you. The buckets can contain very large files. Data transfer can therefore take much longer periods of time. The longer a transfer takes, the greater the odds that the network or your local computer or the remote server have a glitch. With these checkboxes, you can reissue the same data transfer that failed partway through without having to hand pick which files have already been transferred successfully.

"Your upload summary" tells you how many files you are uploading and the total size of all of the files combined. "The following files will be uploaded:" tells you exactly what files you are uploading. To proceed click "Start upload". You will see a pop-up loading bar, and once this has completed, your folder/files will be uploaded and viewable.

As indicated above, the upload s not an atomic process. Uploaded files become accessible as they are individually uploaded.

The upload of a file/folder can overwrite existing files/folders in the bucket (if the selected checkbox conditions are fulfilled). New versions of the files are automatically created in this case. For now, older versions are not readily accessible to the users via the web interface nor the API.

Downloading a folder/file

To download a folder or file, right-click on what you want to download and choose "Download files".

Sharing a file

Warning: Data in a collab (including the bucket) may be confidential or submitted to data privacy regulations. Always check with the data custodian before sharing data beyond the collab's Team.

To share a file or folder with users not in the Team of the collab for that bucket, right click on a file and choose "Manage public links".

You will get the following pop-up:

Enter a description that will help you remember how you intend to share the link, whom it will be shared with, why it is being shared, how long you expect it needs to be shared. Then click "Create Permalink." It will create a link that is now shareable with anybody. To copy the link, click on the copy icon under the "Actions" column. You can now send this file to anybody you wish. The eye icon will show you the link, and the trash icon will delete the link.

Deleting a link means that the link will no longer work, even if you have shared it with others.

Warning: If you delete an object (file or folder) and upload another object with the same name, the permalinks of the deleted object will still point to this new object.

Deleting a folder/file

To delete a folder/file, right-click on what you want to delete and click "Delete files" from the context menu: