Understanding the 'Viewable by' dropdown and Download permission for file uploads in DL

Issue

How do the 'Viewable by' dropdown and Download permission work when uploading files to the Document Library?

Environment

7.4 U76 - 2024.Q4

Resolution

'View' permission → 'View' and 'Download' permissions

The permission that used to be View, starting from version 7.4 u76, was split into View (related to metadata) and Download (access to the "bytes" themselves). See LPD-16744 and Documents and Media Permissions Reference.

In the case of images, it should be noted that for the browsers to be able to render the image, they need to download it first (i.e., Download permission).

How to preserve previous behavior

To maintain the previous behavior (before 7.4 u76), you would need to synchronize the View and Download permissions, meaning that when one is checked, the other should be checked as well, and vice versa.

Behavior of the 'Viewable by:' dropdown

If a site has private pages (disabled by default for new installations, see here), when uploading a file the default value of the 'Viewable by:' dropdown is not Anyone, but Site Members. See The "Anyone (Guest role)" option is not appearing as default on new web content or when uploading new documents.

When selecting Anyone in the visibility dropdown on a site with private pages, the View permission is checked by default but Download is not.
- However, on sites with only public pages, Anyone (the default) automatically grants both View and Download permissions.
Conversely, on sites with only public pages, changing the visibility of an uploaded file from Anyone (the default) to Site Members revokes the View permission for guests but preserves the Download permission unless explicitly removed.
- Note that this could allow guests to download sensitive information if permissions are not carefully managed.

This might not be entirely desirable for some projects and is likely to require you to adjust your work processes compared to previous versions. However, it is considered expected behavior.

Improvements (2025.Q1)

We were aware that this functionality required some improvements. To address some of them, we have implemented the following epic:

LPD-19787 Improve the experience of view and download permissions for documents

In particular, the following story enhances the user experience regarding the 'Viewable by' dropdown ('Viewable and Downloadable by' from now on) when uploading files:

LPD-35510 Improve the permissions configuration experience when uploading files

More information in the following section: The View and Download Permissions.

Known bugs worth noting

LPD-32586 Images not honouring file permissions when they are served from Adaptive Media
- Fixed in 2024.Q3 (and 2024.Q2.8+)
LPD-40815 Previews not honouring file view/download permission
- Fixed in 2025.Q1