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Research Library Organizing with Folders

Organizing with Folders

As your research library grows, folders help you keep everything organized. Create folders for different projects, courses, topics, or research phases.

Creating a folder

  1. Navigate to My Documents in the sidebar.
  2. Click the New Folder button.
  3. Enter a folder name and click Create.

The new folder appears in your document library alongside your papers.

Uploading into a folder

To add documents directly into a folder, open the folder first, then click Upload. The uploaded documents will be placed inside that folder.

Click on a folder to open it and see its contents. The breadcrumb trail at the top shows your current location:

My Documents > Literature Review > Machine Learning Papers

Click any part of the breadcrumb to navigate back up.

Nested folders

Folders can contain other folders, letting you create a hierarchy that matches your research structure.

For example:

My Documents/
├── Thesis/
│   ├── Chapter 1 - Background/
│   │   ├── intro.pdf
│   │   └── related-work.pdf
│   ├── Chapter 2 - Methods/
│   └── Chapter 3 - Results/
├── Lab Meeting/
│   ├── March 2026/
│   └── April 2026/
└── Coursework/

To create a nested folder, open a folder first, then click New Folder from within it.

Renaming a folder

  1. Click the … menu on the folder.
  2. Select Rename.
  3. Enter the new name and click Rename.

Deleting a folder

  1. Click the … menu on the folder.
  2. Select Delete.

When you delete a folder, the folder and its contents are moved to the Trash. You can recover them from the Trash.

Tip: If you only want to remove the folder but keep the documents, upload documents to the root library instead of the folder before deleting it.

Tips for organizing

  • Organize by project - Create a top-level folder for each major project or paper you are working on.
  • Use clear naming - Name folders descriptively so collaborators can find what they need (e.g., “Systematic Review - Inclusion” vs just “Papers”).
  • Flatten when small - If you have fewer than 20 documents, a single level of folders is usually enough. Don’t over-organize.

Next steps