Folder Settings

This article describes Folder Settings not covered in other topics.

This setting helps you automate user provisioning. Use the options in this setting to automatically create a subfolder here for each new user, along with the selected permissions. You can even limit this behavior by group membership so that users in different groups are automatically provisioned in different parent folders.

Site administrators often use this to give users a "Home" folder or create folders that apply to specific workflows. You can create as many of these as you need.

This setting restricts uploaded files by the length of their file name. This is useful when your backend system only supports short file names, due to filename limits on external systems, and cannot accept files when the file name exceeds a certain length. Your chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's subfolders by default, unless you override the setting.

The length of a file name includes its basename, any periods or punctuation, and its file extension. For example, a file named Text_file(1).TXT has a length of 16.

You can choose to restrict uploads so that they will only succeed if the file name is of a length that is equal to, or shorter than, the limit that you specify. Uploads of files with longer names will be blocked and the user will receive an error message stating that the file name is too long and that it exceeds the allowed length.

Alternatively, you can choose to automatically shorten the names of uploaded files. With this option, uploaded files will have their file names shortened to the length limit. The file basename will be shortened while the file extension will be retained. For example, if you specify a length limit of 12, and a file named Text_file(1).TXT is uploaded, then the file name will be changed to Text_fil.TXT.

You can choose whether this setting applies to only this folder or to all subfolders too.

Note that moving or copying folders to destination folders with filename restrictions, such as limiting uploaded files by file name length, is not allowed.

You can override or exclude this setting for subfolders. To exclude or override a subfolder from the parent's restrictions, an admin with adequate privileges can navigate to the subfolder's settings and select the option Limit uploaded files by file name length to set unique rules or override the parent folder's settings.

This setting restricts uploaded files to specified file extensions, which is useful when you want to allow only a certain type of files to be stored in the folder and reject other types of files. Your chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's subfolders by default, unless you override the setting. This setting's default is as a file extension (e.g. pdf, txt) whitelist. If you leave this setting blank, then all file extensions are allowed as uploads to this folder. If you enter one or more extensions, only files with those extensions will be allowed.

You can also toggle this setting to behave as a blacklist rather than a whitelist. Set it to blacklist mode and enter the extensions that you would like to prevent from being uploaded.

Note that moving or copying folders to destination folders with filename restrictions, such as limiting uploaded files to specific file extensions, is not allowed.

You can override or exclude this setting entirely for subfolders. Users with administrator privileges can customize file extension restrictions independently of the parent folder. To exclude or override a subfolder from the parent's file extension restrictions, an admin with adequate privileges can navigate to the subfolder's settings and select the option Limit uploaded files to certain file extensions to set unique file extension rules or override the parent folder's settings.

This setting limits uploaded file names to a specified regular expression (e.g. ^[0-9].*$ will only allow filenames starting with a number). Your chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's subfolders by default, unless you override the setting.

When you have a workflow that requires both speed and accuracy of your staff users, and exists within the added complexity of a large folder tree, you can dramatically increase accuracy, making sure that the right files end up in the right folders, by setting regular expression rules to prevent files that do not fit the pattern from being uploaded.

Note that moving or copying folders to destination folders with filename restrictions, such as limiting uploaded files to regular expressions, is not allowed.

You can override or exclude this setting entirely for subfolders. Users with administrator privileges can customize the restrictions independently of the parent folder. To exclude or override a subfolder from the parent's file name restrictions, an admin with adequate privileges can navigate to the subfolder's settings and select the option Limit uploaded files to regular expression to set unique regular expression for that folder or override the parent folder's settings.

This setting renames the uploaded file names to a specified pattern (e.g. if the uploaded file has the name "FILE-xyz-22313e.txt", you can enable this setting to rename this file automatically to "vendorname-2024.csv"). This setting is useful when you want to completely rename all files upon upload, or remove or add timestamps in your file names, or convert upper case to lower case in your file names, or even to strip the part of the file name or to remove any unreserved characters from the file names upon upload.

Supported patterns to automatically rename the files upon upload:

• %Fp (Original filename with extension, converted to lower case and non ASCII characters normalized to ASCII to ensure widest compatibility)
• %Ff (Original filename with extension)
• %Fe (Original extension only)
• %Fb (Original basename without extension)
• %Fl (Converts upper case letters in your base filename to lower case)
• %p1 (Folder name of the folder that has been configured with this rename action. You can use %p2, %p3, and so on, for folder names further up the folder hierarchy.)
• Regular time related patterns ("YYYY", "MM", "DD", "hh", "mm" and "ss". Check our documentation for more supported time related patterns.)

Your chosen settings will also apply to all of this folder's sub-folders. Automatic renaming of uploaded files saves time and improves accuracy when you have a workflow that requires file names to be in a specific pattern before processing takes place by any Files.com automations flow or even a third party integration or automation.

Note that Rename uploaded files setting applies to files or folders that are directly uploaded to the folder, not when moving or copying them into this folder. In case you have a Files.com automation where you need to rename the destination files, refer to customizing destination filenames.

WebDAV isn't consistently implemented across clients and we have found that some WebDAV clients do not perform atomic uploads. This causes the Rename Uploaded Files feature to receive partially uploaded files rather than the complete file, causing data loss and zero byte files.

We strongly recommend using our Desktop App on desktop computers, rather than the built-in WebDAV client, so that partial data isn't uploaded into folders that have Folder Settings configured for them.

You can move a folder that has Folder Settings configured for it.

As long as the destination is within the native storage of your Files.com site, the Folder Settings will be retained with the folder at the new location.

However, moving a folder that has Folder Settings configured for it into a Remote Mount will only retain those Folder Settings that are compatible with a Remote Mount.

Folders with Folder Settings that are incompatible with Remote Mount, such as File expiration, GPG encryption/decryption, and Remote Server Mount cannot not be moved to the Remote Mount destination.

Deleting a folder will also delete all of its associated folder settings.

This applies whether the folder is on Files.com or on a Remote Server. This also applies whether the folder is deleted using Files.com or deleted by other means on the Remote Server. For example, if a SharePoint user deletes a SharePoint folder then all associated folder settings on Files.com will also be deleted.

To preserve folder settings, consider moving or renaming the folder instead, using Files.com.