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A Source is a hard drive that 1Archive has read into your catalog. Sources live inside folders, and folders can sit inside other folders. For sharing, folders and Sources work the same way. Both can be shared, and a share on a folder passes down to everything inside it. Your organization role is account-wide; it sets how far your access can ever go. What this page covers is the second layer: Can Edit and Can View on each folder or Source (who you’ve added, visible to the whole org, and how those choices pass down the tree). See Roles & Permissions for Owner, Admin, Editor, and Viewer at the org level.

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The two ways to share a Source or folder

Pick whichever fits the material:
  • Make it visible to the whole org. Every person in your organization can see it. This is the right call for anything not sensitive: reference material, public-facing work, stock libraries.
  • Add specific people to it. You pick who’s on the list and what they can do (Can Edit or Can View). This is the right call for client work, unfinished pieces, or anything that shouldn’t be seen by the full team.
Either way, the share covers the item you pick and everything nested inside it. Add Alice to the Marketing folder with Can Edit, and Alice gets Can Edit on every folder and every Source inside Marketing. No extra clicks.

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What the two share roles let you do

RoleWhat it lets someone do
Can EditSee and open the files, and also add, move, rename, or delete folders and Sources inside the share.
Can ViewSee and open the files. No changes to the folder structure or the Sources themselves.
A person’s role on a Source is set by the highest share they have anywhere above it. If you’re added to the Marketing folder as Can View and then added to one Source inside it as Can Edit, you have Can Edit on that one Source and Can View on the rest.

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What a share actually looks like to the recipient

This is the part that trips people up, so it’s worth spelling out: when you share a Source that lives a few folders deep, the person you’ve shared it with sees the folders on the way to it, but nothing else.
  • They can walk through the folders leading down to their share, like a breadcrumb trail.
  • They can’t see any sibling folders or Sources along the way.
  • They can’t read the contents of those breadcrumb folders. Only the names show, so they have a way in.
This means you can share a single Source buried six folders deep without accidentally showing the person everything else those folders hold. Every scenario below walks through a version of this.

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Scenario 1: a single Source shared deep in the tree

The full catalog: 
/Clients
   /Acme Corp
      /2024 Matter
         /Discovery     ← Bob gets Can View
      /2023 Matter      ← Bob was not added
   /Globex Inc          ← Bob was not added
What Bob sees when he opens 1Archive: 
/Clients
   /Acme Corp
      /2024 Matter
         /Discovery     ← he can open the files here
Bob can walk from Clients down to Discovery, but the breadcrumb folders stay closed. No file list inside Clients, Acme Corp, or 2024 Matter. He has no idea that 2023 Matter and Globex Inc exist.

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Scenario 2: a whole folder shared

Sometimes it’s easier to share a whole folder than pick Sources one by one. Drop a person on a folder, and the share covers every Source and sub-folder inside it, now and in the future. The full catalog: 
/Projects
   /Brand Refresh 2025     ← Casey gets Can Edit
      /Raw Footage
      /B-roll
      /Color Tests
      /Final Deliverables
   /Brand Refresh 2023
   /Summer Campaign 2024
What Casey sees: 
/Projects
   /Brand Refresh 2025     ← she can edit anything inside
      /Raw Footage
      /B-roll
      /Color Tests
      /Final Deliverables
Casey can work inside the whole Brand Refresh 2025 folder. She can add new Sources to it, rename the sub-folders, and move files around. She still doesn’t see Brand Refresh 2023 or Summer Campaign 2024. Those were never shared.
If you’re going to share lots of Sources with the same person over time, put them in a folder and share the folder. Any new Sources dropped into that folder later are automatically covered.

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Scenario 3: two shares that overlap

When someone has more than one share that covers the same Source, the highest role wins. 1Archive never quietly lowers access. The full catalog: 
/Clients
   /Acme Corp                  ← Dana gets Can View on the whole folder
      /2024 Matter
         /Discovery             ← Dana also gets Can Edit on this one folder
         /Exhibits
      /2023 Matter
What Dana sees: 
/Clients
   /Acme Corp                  ← read-only here
      /2024 Matter             ← read-only here
         /Discovery             ← she can edit
         /Exhibits              ← read-only here
      /2023 Matter             ← read-only here
Dana can open every Source under Acme Corp, because the folder share gives her Can View on all of them. Inside Discovery, she also has Can Edit because of the direct share, which outranks the folder-wide Can View, so Can Edit is what applies there. Anywhere outside Discovery but still under Acme Corp, she’s read-only.

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Who can change the catalog structure

Moves, renames, and deletes touch the folder tree, so they’re tied to write access:
  • Adding, moving, renaming, or deleting a folder or a Source needs Can Edit on it.
  • Making a new top-level folder (one that sits at the root, not inside any other folder) is limited to Owners, Admins, and Editors in the org.
Deleting a folder removes every Source inside it from the catalog. 1Archive will ask you to confirm, but there’s no undo. When in doubt, move the folder into an archive folder instead.