File Management

Contents

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.

Note:

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:

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 Create 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.

Hotkey Function
Ctrl + A Select all items on current page
Esc Cancel selection
Shift + select Select multiple contiguous items
Ctrl/Command + select Select multiple noncontiguous items
Ctrl/Command + C Copy
Ctrl/Command + X Cut
Ctrl/Command + V Paste
Del Delete
F2 Rename
S Add/remove star
/ Search
= Zoom in on Universal Viewer
- Zoom out on Universal Viewer

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:

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.

To create a public sharing link, please 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 untick the option Allow options to download or copy to prevent sensitive file contents from being easily copied by or shared with other users.

Note:

When the option Allow options to download or copy is unticked, 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:

Category Require additional package installation Require login to view files Available file types
Synology Office Synology Office No odoc, osheet, oslides
Document Document Viewer Yes File types supported by Document Viewer
Video No No mp4
Image No No 3fr, arw, bmp, cr2, crw, dcr, dng, erf, gif, jpe, jpeg, jpg, k25, kdc, mef, mos, mrw, nef, orf, pef, png, ptx, raf, raw, rw2, sr2, srf, tif, tiff, x3f

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, tick 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 untick Allow options to download or copy to prevent sensitive file contents from being easily copied by or shared to by other users.
  5. Tick 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. Tick 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.

Note:

  1. You can share files and folders only with DSM users and groups that have permission to access Synology Drive. You can grant permission to a certain user or group in Control Panel > User.
  2. In addition to the permission types of View, Edit, and Manage, you can also assign the Comment only permission to Synology Office files.
  3. When there is a discrepancy between the sharing link permission and permission given directly to an account, the looser permission restriction applies.
  4. Users given the Manager role have the same file link permission settings as the owner, as well as the ability to modify file link settings for other users.
  5. When the option Allow options to download or copy is unticked, the file preview feature of Public link may differ on different browsing clients. Files with public links allow you to preview Synology Office, MP4, video, and image files on web browsers.

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.

Note:

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:

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-hand corner.
  2. In the drop-down menu, you can filter events by:
  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 wish to revert to an older version.

To restore a file version:

  1. Right-click on an item and select 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:

Note:

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.

Previewing Files

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:

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

Note:

In addition to Synology Office file types, including Document, Spreadsheet, and Slides, other file types which support the preview function are listed in the below table:

Category File Type
Documents .pdf
Images .3fr, .arw, .bmp, .cr2, .crw, .dcr, .dng, .erf, .gif, .ico, .jpe, .jpeg, .jpg, .k25, .kdc, .mef, .mos, .mrw, .nef, .orf, .pef, .png, .psd, .ptx, .raf, .raw, .rw2, .sr2, .tif, .tiff, .x3f
Text .actproj, .ad, .akp, .applescript .as, .as3, .asax, .asc, .ascx, .asm, .asmx, .asp, .aspx, .asr, .bat, .bkpi, .c, .cc, .cmake, .coffee, .cpp, .cs, .css, .cxx, .diff, .erb, .erl, .groovy, .gvy, .h, .haml, .hh, .hpp, .htm, .html, .hxx, .java, .js, .json, .jsx, .less, .lst, .m, .make, .markdown, .md, .mdown, .mhtml, .mkdn, .ml, .mm, .out, .patch, .php, .pl, .plist, .properties, .py, .rb, .sass, .scala, .scm, .script, .scss, .sh, .sml, .sql, .swift, .txt, .vb, .vi, .vim, .xhtml, .xml, .xsd, .xsl, .yaml, .yml
Zip files .7z, .gz, .tbz, .txz, .bz2, .rar, .zip, .tar, .tgz