Teams, drives and folders
How your files are organized, and what each level controls.
A team holds people. A drive holds files and controls who can use them. A folder is just a path inside a drive.
Team Acme Robotics members, API keys, billing
├─ My Drive one per person, only they can open it
└─ Shared drive Policies who can read files and add files
└─ Folder /policies/eu a path that can limit a search
└─ File customer-refund-policy.pdf revisions, tags, statusWhat each level controls
| Level | What it is | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Team | Your company or group. You name it when you sign up. | Members and their team roles, API keys, usage and billing. |
| My Drive | Each person's own drive, made when they join. | Nothing to set: only that person can open it, team owners and admins included. |
| Shared drive | A collection of files the team searches together. | Access. A member sees a shared drive only after someone gives it to them. |
| Folder | A path in a drive, such as /policies/eu. | Organization only, since access isn't set on folders. You can limit a search to one folder. |
| File | One document, with its revisions and tags. | See Files. |
Rules
- A person can be in up to 10 teams. Each team has its own drives, members and balance, and the person has a My Drive in each.
- Every member has one My Drive. It can't be shared, renamed or given to anyone else. To share a file, make a copy of it in a shared drive, or move it there.
- When someone leaves the team, their My Drive is locked for 30 days, then deleted. If they rejoin before then, they get it back.
- Team owners and admins can use every shared drive. Members can use only the shared drives they've been given.
- Within a shared drive, each person is an Admin, an Editor or a Viewer. See Roles.
- The team pays for every drive, My Drives included, from one balance. See Pricing and billing.
- A drive name can be up to 100 characters.
- A path starts with
/and can be up to 1,024 characters./on its own is the top of the drive. - A folder exists once you create it, or once a file is put at a path inside it.
- Deleting a drive also deletes its files and its access list, and removes the drive from every API key that reaches it. You can't undo this.
How to split your files into drives
Because access is set per drive and not per folder, make a separate drive for each group of files that has its own readers.
| If | Then |
|---|---|
| Only the legal team must read the contracts | Put the contracts in their own drive. |
| The whole company reads the policies | Use one drive and give it to every member. |
| A customer-facing agent must read only public help pages | Make a drive for those pages, and an API key that reaches only that drive. |
| You want to search one project inside a large drive | Keep one drive, use a folder, and limit the search to that folder. |
What a search covers
| Who searches | Drives that the search covers |
|---|---|
| A person in the app | The drives they choose, out of those they can use. |
| An agent | Every drive its person can use. The agent doesn't choose drives. |
| An API key | The drives named in the request, out of those the key reaches. |
When a search covers more than one drive, you get a single ranked list.
Where you use it
- In the app: Create a team and a drive and Share a drive.
- With an agent: What an agent can read and write.
- With the API: Authentication and API keys.