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Permissions in 1Archive sit in two places: the same idea as separating who someone is to the account from what they can do on a specific thing. First, every person has one organization role that follows them everywhere: Owner, Admin, Editor, or Viewer. That role is account-wide: it sets their permission boundary, the most they’re allowed to do anywhere in 1Archive. It is separate from the access they get on individual Sources and Collections. Second, people pick up Can Edit or Can View on Sources (and folders in the catalog tree), and Owner, Admin, Editor, or Viewer on Collections, when those items are shared with them or marked visible to the org. Those grants decide which Sources and Collections they can reach and what they can do there. The org role sets the permission boundary for Sources — but Collections work differently. A Viewer can create their own Collections and make changes within them, even though they can’t edit a Source directly. This page is the home base for organization roles. For how shares pass down on Sources, how Collection roles work, and what Owners and Admins can do on top of all that, use the cards below.

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Organization roles (account-wide)

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Dig into the details

Source permissions

How Can Edit and Can View on a folder pass down to everything inside it, and what someone actually sees when their share sits deep in the tree.

Collection permissions

The four Collection roles (Owner through Viewer), what each one can do on that Collection, and the two ways to share: direct to Shared with me or through a folder.

Owners & Admins

What Owners and Admins can do that no one else can, where the line sits on reading private content, and the org-wide settings for Collections and share links.

Off-boarding

Removing someone who’s leaving: handing off their Collections, revoking every share and link they held, and ending their sessions.

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The rules that apply everywhere

Diagram showing Sources as a walled inner circle, Collections in the middle layer accessible to org members and collaborators, and the Public reachable via shareable link. Three rules govern every access check in 1Archive.
  • Your org’s Sources are a walled garden. Only people inside your org can access its Sources. No share, no setting, no link opens that up. Collections are how you reach across that wall — they let you share selected files with anyone, inside or outside the org, including collaborators who’ve never set foot in 1Archive. A Collection file is linked to the original asset, not a copy of it. Rename a file inside a Collection and the Source file stays untouched — the Collection just points to the same underlying asset under a different name. If the original asset is deleted from the Source, the Collection file goes with it.
  • The highest role wins on the same item. If someone reaches the same folder, Source, or Collection through more than one path (a folder share, a direct share, and a “visible to the whole org” mark all at once), they get the most permissive of those grants on that item. Broader access (say, Can View on a parent folder) does not cancel out a stronger, more specific share (say, Can Edit on one Source inside it). 1Archive never quietly lowers access.
  • Viewer is a permission boundary for Sources, not for Collections. Viewers stay read-only on every Source they can see — that can’t be changed. But Viewers can create their own Collections from any Source they have access to, and can make changes within those Collections. Owners and Admins stay in control: there are explicit settings that determine whether any user can create Collections at all, and whether Collections can be shared outside the org.