File system layouts give you control over how users experience your folder structure. They don’t change permissions, but they radically simplify what a user sees and how paths are interpreted.

If your Files.com deployment includes deep or complex folder hierarchies, File system layouts help you present a cleaner, more intuitive view for each type of user. This reduces confusion, minimizes onboarding time, and ensures users focus only on the folders that matter to them.

File System Layouts Simplify User Experience

In many organizations, files are arranged into operational structures, such as a assigning different teams their own folders, grouped by regions, such as:

Root Folder
└── Region/
    └── US/
        └── Finance/
        └── HR/
        └── Operations/
    └── EU/
        └── Finance/
        └── HR/
        └── Operations/

Or perhaps your organization has hundreds of customers who provide data that you deliver to vendors, leading to an organization like:

Root Folder
└── Internal/
    └── Finance/
    └──   HR/
    └──   Operations/
└── Customers/
    └──   East/
        └── ACME/
        └── Corpocustomer/
        └── ...
        └── ZedIndustrial/
    └──   West/
        └── BigCorp/
        └── ...
└── Channels/
    └──   AmazingWebMarket/
        └── Vendor1/
        └── Vendor2/
        └── ...
        └── Vendor3/

This may be perfect for internal governance, but overwhelming for someone who only needs one folder.

File system layouts show your users a simplified, relevant file system without restructuring your actual data. This means that internal users see only what they need, external partners get a clean experience without internal noise, and administrators still retain full control and visibility over the real folder structure.

Setting a User's File System Layout

Each user account includes a setting for the File system layout, which determines how the site's folder hierarchy is displayed to the user.

File system layouts can be configured for 3 different layout modes: Site Root, User Root, and Partner Root. Each offers a different experience, and are best for different roles.

Site Root is Full System Visibility

Site Root, which is the default layout setting, shows your site's root folder as the top-most folder for the user. Whether the user can access a folder or not is still determined by their permissions, but each path they interact with matches the actual absolute path in your site.

This option is best for your site administrators and for internal users who work across several areas of your site. It shows consistent paths across all internal processes and integrations.

Example Folder View

As an example, a user with the Site Root option for their file system layout would see the Customers/East/ACME/ folder as its absolute path Customers/East/ACME.

Customers
└── East
    └── ACME
        └── inbox

Users with a Site Root layout would reference the file as Customers/East/ACME/inbox/invoice.json .

User Root Offers A Simplified View for Internal Users

When you assign a user the User Root layout, you also choose which folder is used as their root folder. For that user, all paths become relative to the chosen root folder, and anything outside that folder is completely hidden. Picking the site's root folder for a users root folder behaves identically to assigning the user the Site Root layout.

The user must still be granted permissions in order to interact with any items within their root folder. Permissions to paths that are not contained in the user's root are ignored.

Assigning a User Root layout minimizes distractions, and reduces training overhead, as "Where do I upload this?" becomes obvious.

This option is suitable for internal team members who work in one section of the business, and is also suitable for external users if you aren't using Partner management.

Example Folder View

As an example, imagine the departmental layout from earlier, and expand the Region/US/HR folder:

Root Folder
└── Region/
    └── US/
    └── Finance/
    └── HR/
        └── Onboarding/
        └── Policies/
        └── Reviews/
            └── 2025/
    └── Operations/
└── EU/
    └── Finance/
    └── HR/
    └── Operations/

For a worker in the US HR department, we can set their file system layout to User Root and choose the Region/US/HR folder for their home folder. Now the user sees the following folder layout:

Root Folder
└── Onboarding/
└── Policies/
└── Reviews/
    └── 2025/

The folder that the user sees as Reviews/2024 is actually located at Region/US/HR/Reviews/2024 .

Partner Root is for External Users

Users for Partners are always assigned the Partner Root layout. Their root folder is the folder selected for the Partner's Root Folder. The end result is similar to assigning a User Root layout.

Interactions with Other Features

File system layouts affect every interface where paths matter.

Users will use paths which are relative to their Root Folder when interacting with all features, such as file management, Share Links, Inboxes, Public Hosting, Notifications, any SDKs or client applications.

The exception is that logs record absolute paths.

Layouts Do Not Grant Permissions

File system layouts are not permissions. User, Group, or Partner permissions are still required for a user to interact with files in the site. Permissions are specified as absolute paths using the normal site root, even when they apply to users with a custom root folder.

For users with a custom root folder, permissions outside of that folder are ignored. Users cannot "see up" beyond their assigned Root Folder.

Logs Record Absolute Paths

Logs and SIEM integrations capture absolute paths because they are operating in a system context, rather than being tied to a user's perspective. This ensures administrators have a full, consistent historical record.

The sole exception is API Logs because they capture the paths used in requests and responses, which will be relative to the user's root folder.

This dual-layer approach maintains usability for end-users and accountability for administrators.

File System Layouts Do Not Apply to Child Sites

Users who have delegated access to a Child Site will always experience that site in Site Root layout, regardless of their layout setting for the parent site.

Site Restructuring

File system layouts respond intelligently to most site restructuring. If a user's root folder is moved or renamed, the user's setting is updated with the new path to their root folder.

When a user's root folder is deleted, the user's setting is not updated, and they cannot access any files. To fix this, update their root folder setting so that it points at a valid folder.