Here's the breakthrough: you don't need complex folder hierarchies. Folders are for ONE primary dimension of organization-how your team divides ownership or major content categories. Everything else-campaigns, dates, content types, status, products-belongs in metadata, not folders.
When setting up Data Dwell, it's tempting to recreate the complex folder hierarchies you're used to from traditional file systems. After all, folders are familiar-they're how we've organized files for decades.
But here's the problem: complex folder structures in a digital asset management system often create more problems than they solve. Contributors don't know where to upload assets. Content gets siloed in deep hierarchies that nobody can find. Users with folder creation permissions build structures that don't align with your plan.
This guide will help you design a folder structure that works with your team's existing mental models while keeping things simple, clear, and discoverable.
In traditional file systems, folders are the only organizational tool available. Need to categorize by campaign, product line, content type, and year? You're forced to create nested folders for each dimension.
The result is often something like this:
Marketing / 2024 / Product-A / Campaign-Spring / Social-Media / Instagram / Draft
This creates several problems:
Contributors can't decide where things go - Should a Product A Instagram post for the Spring campaign go in the path above, or under Social-Media / Instagram / 2024 / Product-A? Both seem logical, leading to duplicates and confusion.
Content becomes hard to discover - Want all Spring campaign assets across all products? You'll need to dig through multiple folder paths. Looking for all Product A content regardless of campaign? Good luck. Filters become useless because the information is trapped in folder names, not structured metadata.
Structure becomes rigid and fragile - When a new product line launches or organizational priorities shift, your entire folder hierarchy may need restructuring. Moving assets disrupts workflows, breaks bookmarks, and confuses users who knew where things were. Permission boundaries tied to old folder structures may need complete reconfiguration.
Rogue folders proliferate - When users have permission to create folders but don't understand the intended structure, they create folders in incorrect places or with inconsistent naming. Over time, this gradually degrades your carefully planned structure. What started as a clean hierarchy becomes a maze of "New Folder (3)" and "John's Campaign Stuff" and "Q4_final_FINAL_v2".
Restructuring is painful - Realize six months in that your folder structure doesn't work? Now you're facing a disruptive migration. Assets need moving, users need retraining, saved filters break, permissions need reconfiguration, and everyone complains that they can't find anything anymore.
Key Takeaway: Complex folder hierarchies are a symptom of trying to make folders do too much. In traditional file systems, you have no choice. In Data Dwell, you have a better option.
In Data Dwell, you have metadata-structured, filterable fields that enable cross-cutting discovery without folder complexity. This fundamentally changes how you should think about folders.
Your folder structure should reflect ONE primary organizational dimension-typically how your team naturally thinks about content ownership or major content categories. That's it. Just one dimension.
Everything else-campaign names, content types, status, dates, product lines-should be captured in metadata, not folder names.
This has a critical implication for planning: Folders, permissions, and metadata must be planned together, not in isolation. Your folder structure defines permission boundaries (from the Planning Permissions article), and your metadata strategy determines what doesn't need to be in folders (from the Planning Metadata article). All three systems work together.
The key question: Does this represent a fundamental, stable way my organization divides content ownership or major categories? Will this dimension align with my permission boundaries?
The key question: Do I need to find content across this dimension regardless of where it's stored? If yes, use metadata. Metadata enables discovery across folder boundaries-that's its superpower.
Quick Win: List all the ways you currently organize content (or plan to). Circle the ONE dimension that represents stable, fundamental organizational ownership or major categories. That becomes your folder structure. Everything else becomes metadata fields.
Before planning your structure, understand how folders work in Data Dwell and what features are available.
Folders support several actions, controlled by user permissions:
These permissions are assigned through user groups with Folder Roles (see Planning Permissions article). Which actions appear in the UI depends on what permissions each user has.
Critical planning consideration: Folder creation permissions directly impact whether your structure stays clean or becomes chaotic. Plan who can create folders as part of your permission strategy.
Users with appropriate permissions can customize how content is displayed within folders:
These ordering options can help maintain organization as content grows within folders.
Folders define where permission boundaries are enforced. When you assign a Folder Role to a user group (see Planning Permissions article), you select which folders that group can access.
This means: Your folder structure should align with permission boundaries. If Marketing and Sales need different access, they should have separate top-level or second-level folders. If access boundaries are deep within subfolder hierarchies, permission management becomes complex and error-prone.
Plan folders and permissions together. Major permission boundaries should happen at top-level folders, not six levels deep.
Folders and metadata serve complementary purposes:
Folders provide hierarchical structure: Marketing → Social Media → Organic shows where content lives organizationally and defines permission boundaries.
Metadata enables cross-folder discovery: "Show me all assets for Campaign X" works regardless of where files are stored. One campaign might have assets in Social Media, Email Marketing, and Print folders-metadata connects them through filters.
Your folder structure gives assets an organizational home. Your metadata makes them discoverable across that structure.
Key Takeaway: Folders answer "Where does this organizationally belong and who should access it?" Metadata answers "What is this and how do I find it?"
Quick Win: Review your draft folder structure. For each folder level, ask: "Is this about organizational ownership/boundaries, or is this really metadata?" If it's metadata (content type, campaign, date, status), it shouldn't be a folder.
Before creating folders, ask:
Your folder structure should align with existing mental models, not force people to learn entirely new ways of thinking about content. Honor how your team already conceptualizes content organization.
Quick Win: Ask 3-5 people from different teams: "How do you think about where content belongs?" Listen for common patterns. If everyone naturally talks about departmental ownership, that's your answer. If they talk about content categories or client divisions, that might be your primary dimension instead.
Aim for 2-3 levels maximum in most cases. A parent-child relationship is often sufficient. Beyond that, you're probably encoding metadata into folder structure.
Good: Marketing / Social Media
Good: Marketing / Social Media / Organic
Too deep: Marketing / Social Media / Organic / Instagram / 2024 / Product-A
There are exceptions where deeper hierarchies make sense for your specific organizational needs, but the majority of cases can be handled effectively with 3 levels or fewer. If you find yourself planning 4, 5, or 6 levels deep, pause and ask: "Could metadata handle these deeper levels instead?"
Why this matters: Deep hierarchies make it harder to decide where content goes, harder to set up permissions, and harder to restructure when needs change. Every additional level increases complexity exponentially.
Folder names should be immediately clear to anyone in your organization. Avoid:
Use consistent, descriptive naming that matches how people talk about content. If your team says "Campaign Materials" not "Marketing Collateral," use their language.
Important: These examples show different approaches based on different primary organizational dimensions. Pick ONE approach that matches your organization's natural way of dividing content. Don't try to combine multiple approaches-that's how you end up with complex, nested hierarchies.
Best for organizations where content ownership is primarily divided by department or team.
Use metadata for: campaign names, product lines, content types, dates, status, target markets
Permission boundaries: Aligned with departments-Marketing team has access to Marketing folder, Sales team to Sales folder
Best for organizations with distinct market segments that require different content strategies and access control.
Use metadata for: specific products, campaigns, content types, dates, departments, audience segments
Permission boundaries: Aligned with markets-Consumer team accesses Consumer Market, B2B team accesses Business Market
Best for agencies managing content for multiple clients with strict access separation requirements.
Use metadata for: project names, content types, status, deliverable dates, campaign names, team members
Permission boundaries: Aligned with clients-Client A team only accesses Client A folder, maintaining confidentiality
Best when content type is the primary way teams think about organization and asset management workflows differ by content type.
Use metadata for: products, campaigns, dates, owners, status, usage rights, departments
Permission boundaries: May be less clear with this approach-consider whether access control needs align with content types
Quick Win: Review these four approaches. Which ONE matches how your organization naturally divides content and where your permission boundaries need to be? Write down your primary dimension and sketch 3-5 top-level folders. If you're tempted to combine approaches, stop-that's the trap.
Consistent naming makes folders predictable, professional, and maintainable.
Quick Win: Write down your folder naming conventions in a simple one-page document. Include: naming style (title case), what to avoid, and 5-10 examples. Share this with anyone who has folder creation permissions.
Launch with the minimum viable folder structure. You can always add folders later, but restructuring is disruptive and painful.
Many organizations can start with 3-5 top-level folders and 0-2 subfolders under each. That's it. Resist the urge to plan for every possible future scenario.
Why starting simple matters: You don't yet know how your team will actually use the system. Your assumptions about workflow and content organization will be partially wrong. A simple structure is easier to adjust based on real usage. A complex structure you built on assumptions becomes a rigid constraint.
Consider limiting who can create folders. When too many users have this permission, folder structures become inconsistent and disorganized. "Rogue folders" appear-poorly named, incorrectly placed, duplicative.
The rogue folder problem has two root causes:
Solutions:
Folder creation is typically limited to admins or designated content managers who understand and maintain the organizational structure. See the Planning Permissions article for guidance on folder creation controls.
Quick Win: Right now, identify who should be able to create folders in your organization. Should be 2-5 people maximum. Then write a one-page document explaining your folder structure logic. This prevents rogue folders before they start.
Rather than creating Archive folders throughout your structure (Marketing/Archive, Sales/Archive, Product/Archive), consider:
This prevents archive folders from proliferating throughout your structure and makes it easier to find archived content across categories using metadata filters.
After launch, monitor how people use folders:
Adjust based on real usage, but avoid frequent restructuring that confuses users and disrupts workflows. Schedule folder structure reviews quarterly, not weekly.
Quick Win: Set a calendar reminder for 60 days after launch. At that point, review folder usage, talk to 5 users about their experience, and make one round of adjustments if needed. Then leave it stable for another 90 days.
Just because your file server has 10 nested levels doesn't mean your DAM should. This is your opportunity to simplify.
The problem: File server structures evolved organically over years, accumulating complexity and workarounds. They're often a mess. Don't import that mess.
What to do instead: Use your DAM implementation as a fresh start. Design the folder structure you wish you'd had all along, using metadata to reduce complexity.
If you're creating folders for campaigns, products, dates, content types, status, and regions, you're doing it wrong. That's 6+ dimensions-and folders can only represent one hierarchical dimension at a time.
The problem: Multi-dimensional folder structures force arbitrary hierarchies (is it Product/Campaign or Campaign/Product?), create confusion, and make cross-dimensional discovery impossible.
What to do instead: Pick ONE dimension for folders. Everything else goes in metadata where it can be filtered across folder boundaries.
If you have dozens of folders at a single level, you've probably gone too far. Users face overwhelming choice and can't find the right folder.
The problem: 30 folders at the same level is harder to navigate than 5 folders with clear purposes. Granularity belongs in metadata, not folder structure.
What to do instead: Consolidate folders and use metadata for finer distinctions. Instead of separate folders for each of 20 products, use one "Product Assets" folder with a Product metadata field.
"Social Media" and "SocialMedia" and "social-media" and "SM" are all different folders. Users can't predict folder names, leading to duplicates and confusion.
The problem: Every naming variation creates a separate folder. Contributors create duplicates because they can't find the "right" folder name.
What to do instead: Document naming conventions clearly. Enforce them consistently. Train content managers. Audit regularly.
This leads to structural chaos. "New Folder (3)" appears. Duplicates proliferate. Nobody knows the intended structure.
The problem: Folder creation permissions are too broad and/or the folder structure isn't documented and communicated.
What to do instead: Limit folder creation to 2-5 designated people (see Planning Permissions article). Document the structure. Train content managers. Communicate to all users where to upload content.
Folders, permissions, and metadata are interconnected systems. Planning them separately creates misalignment.
The problem: Folder structure doesn't align with permission boundaries, requiring complex overlapping permissions. Or folder structure duplicates what metadata could handle better.
What to do instead: Plan all three together. Read Planning Permissions and Planning Metadata articles alongside this one. Major permission boundaries should align with top-level folders. Anything metadata can handle shouldn't be in folders.
Remember: a simple, intuitive folder structure combined with robust metadata is far more powerful than a complex folder hierarchy alone. Folders are for ONE dimension. Metadata handles everything else. Plan them together.