File Management

Contents

• Categories and Labels
• Management Options
• Organizing Files and Folders with Labels
• Sharing Files and Folders
• Searching for Files and Folders
• Log
• Managing Historical Versions of Files
• Monitoring Personal Usage in Team Folders
• Previewing Files

Categories and Labels

From the menu panel on the Synology Drive homepage, you will find the following eight categories along with the labels you have created. Click on a category to view items within this category, or click on a label to view items with this label.

• My Drive: View files and folders owned by you.
• Team Folder: View the Team Folders which you have permission to access.
• Computer Backup: View the files and folders backed up from computers.
• Shared with me: View the files and folders that other users have shared with you.
• Shared with others: View the files and folders that you have shared with other users.
• Recent: View up to 200 recently accessed files and folders, including those shared with you and shared publicly.
• Starred: View the files and folders that you have starred.
• Recycle Bin: View the files and folders owned by you that have been deleted.
• Labels: View files and folders that you have added labels to. You can also create a new label from here by clicking the + button. Renaming or modifying a label will update all items with this label.

Management Options

Files and folders are displayed in the main panel on the homepage of Synology Drive. At the top of the main panel, you can view the path of a file and jump to a specific level by clicking it.

Use the toolbar at the top of the Synology Drive homepage to perform the following actions, or simply right-click on an item from the main panel to perform the same actions:

• Create: Click the + button to create a folder or a Synology Office files if Synology Office is installed.
• Upload: Upload files or folders from your computer or from your Synology NAS.
• Share: Select an item and click this icon to share the item with other users.
• Get link: Select an item and click this icon to obtain a shareable link to share with other users.
• Labels: Select one or multiple items and click this icon to apply an existing label to the selected items. You can also create a new label from here.
• Make a copy: Select one or multiple items and click this icon to duplicate them on the same path level.
• Delete: Select an item and click this icon to delete it and move it to the owner's Recycle Bin.
• More: Select an item and click this icon to perform more actions to the item.
  • Preview: Select an item and click this option to preview its content. Only certain file types are supported.
  • Copy to: Select an item and click this option to copy the item to another location in Synology Drive.
  • Move to: Select an item and click this option to move the item to another location in Synology Drive.
  • Rename: Select an item and click this option to rename it.
  • Add star: Select an item and click this option to add a star to it.
  • Information: Select an item and click this option to view detailed information about this item.
  • Version history: Select an item and click this option to view its version history.
  • Download: Select an item and click this option to download it.
• List View
  • List View : Displays small file type icons, file/folder title, owner, modified time, size, and labels with comfortable spacing.
  • Compact View : Displays small file type icons, file/folder title, owner, modified time, size, and labels with compact spacing.
  • Detail View : Displays small thumbnails, file/folder title, owner, modified time, size, and labels.
  • Thumbnail View : Displays large thumbnails and file/folder title.
  • Tile View : Displays small file type icons and file/folder title.
• Sort : Sort files/folders by title, modified time, type, owner, or size.

In addition to the features above, Synology Drive also offers other useful management tools. Commonly used features will be covered below in detail.

To upload files from your computer:

In addition to clicking the Upload button, you can also use the drag-and-drop feature directly to upload files from your computer.

To download a file or folder:

On the homepage of Synology Drive, right-click on an item and select Download. If what you selected is a folder or multiple files, the selection will be download as a .zip file.

To restore a deleted file or folder:

In your own Recycle Bin, select an item and click the Restore icon in the toolbar.

To manage files with hotkeys:

Synology Drive portal provides the below hotkey functions for efficient file management with your keyboard.

Organizing Files and Folders with Labels

To create a label:

On the homepage of Synology Drive, click the + button next to Labels in the menu panel.

To create a label and add it to an item:

1. On the homepage of Synology Drive, select one or multiple items in the main panel.
2. Click the Labels icon in the toolbar and click Create.
3. Edit the name and color of the label.
4. Click OK. The newly created label will be added to your selected items.

To add an existing label to an item quickly:

Do either of the following:

• Drag and drop a label from the menu panel to an item in the main panel.
• Drag and drop one or multiple items from the main panel to a label in the menu panel.

To add multiple labels to an item:

1. On the homepage of Synology Drive, select one or multiple items in the main panel.
2. Click the Labels icon in the toolbar.
3. Select one or multiple labels.
4. To remove a label from an item, simply deselect the unwanted label.
5. Click Apply.

Sharing Files and Folders

With Synology Drive, you can share your files and folders, share the items that you have permission to manage, and obtain file links to re-share the files that you have permission to browse. Before sharing a file, you can grant viewing, editing, or managing permission to other DSM users or groups. Upon sharing a file, notifications will be sent to the invitees.

To create sharing links:

On the homepage of Synology Drive, right-click on an item and click Share, or click the Share icon in the toolbar. Select one of the below options from the Privacy Settings drop-down menu.

• Private - Only specific accounts can access

The list of accounts that you invited below can access the item according to their corresponding permission.

• Internal - Anyone with an account can view, comment, or edit

All accounts with the permission to access Synology Drive on that Synology NAS can access the item when signed in.

To create a public sharing link, refer to the To share files with anyone via public link section.

When granting users permission to view file contents in Privacy Settings, you can unselect the option Allow options to download or copy to prevent sensitive file contents from being easily copied by or shared with other users.

When the option Allow options to download or copy is unselected, the file preview feature for the associated file may differ on different browsing clients (e.g., iOS and Android devices). The following file types can be previewed on web browsers:

To invite accounts:

1. In the User/Group field under Invitee list, enter a DSM username or a group name. An autocomplete list of usernames or group names will appear as you start typing.
2. Click to see the permission granted to each role and then select either Previewer, Reviewer, Viewer, Commenter, Editor, or Manager from the drop-down menu.
3. Click the + button to share this item with that user or group. You can add multiple users or groups.
4. Click Save.

To share files with anyone via public link:

Synology Drive supports password and expiration protections for public sharing links in the Public Link tab.

1. On the homepage of Synology Drive, right-click on an item and click Share, or click the Share icon in the toolbar.
2. In the Public Link tab, select the checkbox to create a public link for this item.
3. Select whether you want to only allow people with this link to view or to edit this item from the  Privacy Settings drop-down menu.
4. When selecting the viewing permission in Privacy Settings, you can unselect Allow options to download or copy to prevent sensitive file contents from being easily copied by or shared to by other users.
5. Select the checkbox under Password Protection to add password protection for this sharing link, and enter the password in the text field. The password can be displayed by clicking .
6. Select the checkbox under Link Expiration to set an expiration date for this sharing link. Enter the date or click to configure the date.
7. Click Save.

Please note that when people access the folder via public link, the permission settings of this folder are also applied to all the files inside this folder.

To obtain file links:

On the homepage of Synology Drive, right-click on an item and click Get link. You can copy the file link and share it with others.

Searching for Files and Folders

Type a keyword into the search bar in the upper-right corner. You can also click the magnifying glass to refine your search with one or more of the following criteria:

• Keyword
  • Include file contents in the search: Select the checkbox if you want to search within file contents. This function is only available when file content indexing has been enabled in Universal Search.
• Location: Select one of the existing categories, Current location, My Drive, Team Folder, Shared with me, Shared with others, Starred, or click Customize to select a specific folder to search in.
• Type: Select whether you want to search for a folder, a file, a document, a photo, a video, or music. You can also search by extension.
• Owner: Search by file ownership.
• Labels: Select one or multiple labels. When you select multiple labels, an item will be considered a match as long as it has just one of the selected labels.
• Size (MB): Search by file size (calculated in megabytes).
• Date: Search by modified time or creation time.

Log

On the homepage of Synology Drive, click on the icon in the lower-left corner and select Log to view a record of actions that have been performed within a specific period. You can view the log in its entirety with all events or you can view events related to different folders, which can be selected from the drop-down menu at the top.

To search through the log with a specific filter:

1. Click the arrow in the search bar on the upper-right corner.
2. In the drop-down menu, you can filter events by:
• Keyword: Enter the name of any user to find events related to the user.
• Date Range: Choose from Today, Yesterday, Last week, Last month or Customize to enter a start and end date to find log records within a specific date range.
• Type: In the drop-down menu you can select the type of event you want to view. You can also select Customize to select several different types of events at once.
3. To reset your filtered log, click Reset and then Search again.

Managing Historical Versions of Files

Synology Drive Server saves historical versions of each modified file. Every time you modify a file, a backup version is created, just in case you make mistakes or want to revert to an older version.

To restore a file version:

1. Right-click on an item and select Version history. A window will appear with a list of historical versions sorted by modified time.
2. Click the icon on a version from the list, then you can choose from the below options:
• Preview: Preview this historical version. This option is only available for files in Synology Office formats.
• Restore: Restore the file to the selected version, which will overwrite the current one.
• Make a copy: Save the selected version as a separate file.
• Download: Download this historical version to your computer.

Monitoring Personal Usage in Team Folders

1. On the homepage of Synology Drive, click on the icon in the lower-left corner and select Storage usage.
2. In the pop-up Storage usage window, you will find your personal storage usage of each Team Folder or My Drive. The total capacity is only shown if the quota limit has been set for the user. Please note that the usage calculation is not available for ext4 file system or Hybrid Share folders.

Previewing Files

With Universal Viewer installed, Synology Drive allows you to preview files without having to download them first. You can double-click on the file to preview the file, or right-click on the file and select Preview. On the preview page, you may use the toolbar at the top of the page to do any of the following:

• Share: Open the Share settings windows to share the file.
• Print: Click to print the file. This option is available for PDF files, image files, and text files.
• Download: Download the file.
• More: Click the icon to open more options.
  • Search: This option is only available for PDF files. You can search for any keywords within the PDF file.
  • Detailed info: Displays detailed information about this file, including file type, modified date, and file size.
  • Open in new tab: Opens the file in a new tab. If the file is not in Synology Office format, it will be downloaded.
  • View: This option is only available for documents, slides, or spreadsheet files (e.g., .doc, .ppt, .xls) that are not in Synology Office formats. You can choose to either Open in Synology Office or Open in Document Viewer.

To zoom in or out, click the plus (+) or minus (-) signs at the bottom of the page.

In addition to Synology Office file types (Document, Spreadsheet, and Slides), other file types which support the preview function are listed in Universal Viewer software specifications.