# Question regarding the security of sharing a folder (that is shared by syncthing privately) publicly as well
**URL:** https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [January 4, 2021, 5:05am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125 "2021-01-04T05:05:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mrivers](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/mrivers)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2021, 5:05am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125/1 "2021-01-04T05:05:18Z")
Hi everyone! Hope you all are having a good day.
So my situation is simple. I’ve got a folder that is synced to my private folders via syncthing. I also want to make said folder publicly available on the network to all users. I’m just worried if syncthing is putting or will put in the future anything in the shared folder that might give away some sensitive information. I know that it puts the .stfolder marker which doesn’t really contain anything. That’s what I was wondering. Basically I am worried syncthing is putting some sensitive relatively private data inside my public folder which is also synced privately.
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### Author:  [@tomasz86](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/tomasz86)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2021, 6:01am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125/2 "2021-01-04T06:01:23Z")
I assume that you want to share that folder using your OS sharing, and not by using Syncthing, right?
If you use ignore patterns or versioning, then the `.stignore` file and the `.stversions` folder will also be available in the same way as `.stfolder` is. Other then these, Syncthing by itself does not put anything else in a folder.
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### Author:  [@imsodin](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/imsodin)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2021, 7:52am UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125/3 "2021-01-04T07:52:40Z")
The directory you share publicly already contains all the data (sensitive or not), that Syncthing cares about. What additional sensitive information are you worried about?
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### Author:  [@mrivers](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/mrivers)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2021, 3:42pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125/4 "2021-01-04T15:42:08Z")
> What additional sensitive information are you worried about?
Like what tomasz86 was referring to above. Anyway I think tomasz86’s reply satisfies my query. Thanks for all the help!
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### Author:  [@mrivers](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/mrivers)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2021, 4:36pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125/5 "2021-01-04T16:36:50Z")
> I assume that you want to share that folder using your OS sharing, and not by using Syncthing, right?
Yep, exactly. I’m gonna use both at the same time. Now that I thought about it, I can also just exclude syncthing’s created files and folders from being shared by the OS. My only worry is if future syncthing upgrades will put new files or directories inside that shared folder that I would need to manually exclude from being shared by the OS. But I can also just disable upgrades or just remove the folder from being public before upgrades in order to check. 😀
I forgot about the `.stignore` file and the `.stversions` folder. I don’t think they’re that much of a concern to be shared publicly. I also did not enable versioning and ignore patterns on said publicly shared(via OS) folder.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.syncthing.net/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2021, 4:37pm UTC](https://forum.syncthing.net/t/question-regarding-the-security-of-sharing-a-folder-that-is-shared-by-syncthing-privately-publicly-as-well/16125/6 "2021-02-03T16:37:04Z")
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