Get a sharable link for a file

Globus Online provides the ability to generate a shareable link which can be used by the people you specify or anyone (even people not logged in to Globus) to view or edit a specific file.

The steps below are for sharing a file in an LSS share. To get a sharable link for a file in another location, you can adjust the Collection and/or Path as needed in step 2.

A video walk-through of this process is also available. You may be prompted to login with your HawkID to access the video.

  1. Log in to Globus Online
    1. Go to https://app.globus.org/file-manager and select University of Iowa from the drop-down list of organizations.
      This will redirect you to the University of Iowa login page where you can log in with your HawkID.
  2. Connect to the Collection containing your data
    1. Navigate to the File Manager tab (you’re probably already here by default).
    2. In the “Collection” field, search for and select “uiowadata#data”.
    3. In the “Path” field, type in “/Shared/<share name>”.
    4. Depending on the Panel layout you have selected, click “Start” below the “Path” field or hit “Enter/Return” on your keyboard to connect to the data location.
      You should now see the contents of your storage location in the pane below the Collection and Path fields.
  3. Create a Guest Collection
    1. Navigate through your data in the pane as needed, so that you can see the folder containing the file you would like a link for.
    2. Select the folder (the row for that folder should be blue and the box to the left of the folder name should have a check mark), and then click "Share" in the actions menu.
    3. Click the "Add Guest Collection" button (upper right corner).
    4. Provide a "Display Name" for your guest collection, then click "Create Collection".
  4. Add a permission to your guest collection
    1. You should now be on the "Permissions" tab for your new guest collection. Click on the "Add Permissions - Share With" button (upper right corner).
    2. By default, the path for the permission is "/", which will apply the permission to all of the contents of the folder you selected in step 3b. Leave this as-is or use the "Browse" button to select a different folder within your guest collection.
    3. In the "Share with" list, select who should be able to access the file. Depending on your selection, you may also need to specify the users or group to share with.
    4. In the "Permissions" list, select what type of access people should have. "Read" will allow people to view and download the files, and "Write" will allow people to edit the files.
    5. Click "Add Permission". A popup will confirm the settings of the permission you created. Click "Done" to close the message.
  5. Connect to your new Guest Collection
    1. Click on the "Overview" tab (top left) and then click the "Open in File Manager" button (right side).
    2. Double-check the Collection field to be sure that the Collection selected is your new guest collection. If it is not, use the Collection field to search for and select your new guest collection.
  6. Get a sharable link to a file
    1. Navigate through your guest collection as needed, and click on the name of the file you would like a link for. The row for that file should be blue and the box to the left of the file name should have a check mark.
      Note: You can only generate a direct link to view/download one file at a time, so do not select more than one file at this step.
    2. Click “Get Link” in the actions menu. This should cause a “Sharable links to:” section to open above the list of files.
    3. In the “access the selected file directly” section, click the “copy to clipboard” icon or expand the “view URL” section and then copy the URL. You can now paste the URL wherever you need it.
    4. Repeat steps 6a-6c for each file you need a link for.