Just curious on the status of this? My use case is below.

Our business provides product development services. We work with external consultants, contractors and other remote workers. Plus, we collaborate with our clients.
We have a template folder structure for each client and project. .. e.g. Client Name/Project 1/ Project Phase/"various project folders".
The "Project 1" folder includes financial, legal and other information that is for internal use only along with multiple Phase folders (these Phases describe groupings of steps in the development process). The Project Phase folder houses all the Phase specific information such as reporting, engineering, client supplied info, client communications... etc.

With waterfall permissions I can't allow collaborators to have permission to see the client folder, one specific project folder, one specific Phase folder and only the folders that I want them to see under the Phase folder. Right now I have to create a SHARED folder within the Phase folder and only share that folder with collaborators. However, I must name the folder "SHARED-Client Name-Project Name-Phase" in order for the external collaborator to understand what the folder means on their BOX account. Otherwise, they would see 5 folders named "SHARED" not know which Shared folder pertains to which project.

All of that is to say that allowing specific users access to specific folders without regard to the parent folder, would be very helpful!

I understand it can get complicated to manage but managing workarounds is also very complicated too.

One suggestion to make it easier when assigning permissions would be to allow an indented visual list of folders under a user with the subsequent permission level shown next to the folder. That visual tool would make adding and adjusting permissions for a user much faster. I can also envision the same thing for reviewing permissions of a folder where the main folder is at the top and all the sub-folders (indented) are below and the users/groups and their permissions are shown next to each folder. A visual tool like this would be great!

Finally, folder templates with permission templates would be really great too. That way I can setup a template for Client and Project Folders with all the proper group permissions setup ahead of time. Then I would only need to add a few specific people instead of setting up all the permissions each time. Again, making this a visual easy to use tool would make the user experience great!

Playing with fire here. Years of user decisions in a non-waterfall environment accumulate a massive set of permissions exceptions that become a headache for everyone. If implemented, "allow breaking waterfall" should be a folder setting, with defaults managed in the Admin Console.

Effectively have box work similar to Windows NTFS and DFS permissions (source : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/dfs-namespaces/dfs-overview) and not enforce the current "waterfall" method of permissions as assigning viewer rights to a child folder of a shared root folder breaks the file path and directory tree within Windows Box Drive (i.e. spreadsheet linking).

We just subscribed to box for our business but we didn't realize that these permissions were set up as waterfall. This really makes box in efficient for us because we have to have separate out folders that really should be together in order to effectively give permissions. This does not make sense for our business. . If this cannot get fixed we will have to switch to another service that can provide it.

Our waterfall of permissions and restrictions could be interrupted down the line because the user can have sub-items which specify different permissions/restrictions if the user moved to the folder.
Please restrict or change permission to parent folder one's

Please Box team, consider moving forward with the implementation of this feature post haste! It's 2019 and inheritance of permissions should not be enforced. It is a detriment to project organization in my industry and the only solution at this time that isn't a hack seems to be meeting the issue with greater disorganization (partitioning files in such a way that they end up in separate folders).

Although there are inelegant workarounds, hacks really, it is imperative in many common use cases to be able to change the inherited permission of a folder. Not having this ability in an enterprise-level product like Box is unforgivable.

Any updates on this request, looks like its from 2016, and is of critical importance for many users.

I respect that you've developed Box as it is, but we're drowning in the waterfall. Perhaps rather than undoing all you've done, for in some cases it may well be useful this way, perhaps adding a "compatibility mode" option that would allow more restrictive (server-like) permissions to be used where needed would be the best. Folders running in this new mode could be indicated by another color, so that people could easily distinguish between native Box and compatible-mode folders. This way your system could go to the Box rule set for permissions if in Box mode, a separate set of rules for the compatibility mode. This may be easier than trying to jury rig additional features into your existing structure. We WILL appreciate this functionality, believe me and a whole lot of other admins! Thanks for your consideration.

I would like to give someone access to a parent folder and then remove them from a few specific ones.

Grant access to a folder but restrict subfolder access

The ability to have collaboration permissions at single folder levels (instead of waterfall) to allow for more secure and easier sharing, especially externally.

By allowing permissions to be controlled for a single folder, risk of accidental collaboration invites can be lessened (either with wrong departments or external individuals).