Autodesk Docs – Set Permissions to a Folder

**Please note, as of 24^th March 2026, the Autodesk Construction Cloud has joined the Forma industry cloud and has been rebranded as Forma. Find out more details here.**

To set permissions on a folder in Autodesk Docs, you use the folder’s permission settings panel to assign a permission level (such as View, Download, Edit or Manage), to specific users, roles, companies or everyone. The same panel also controls how those permissions inherit down through subfolders.

What Folder Permissions Do

Folder permissions control who can see, download, upload, edit or fully manage documents in a given folders and its subfolders in Autodesk Docs within the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC). Only project administrators and members with high-level Manage or Folder Control-type permission on that folder can change these settings.

Typical permission levels you will see include, for example:

• View: User can only see the documents in the folder.
• View + Download: User can see and download.
• Create: User can view, export and publish markups.
• Create + Download: User can view, export, publish markups and upload.
• Edit: User can view, export, publish markups, upload and edit.
• Manage: User can do all of the above, plus manage permissions, members and other admin-level folder tasks.

Open the folder permission settings. You manage permissions from the Files tool in Autodesk Docs:

• Click Files on the left navigation of your Autodesk Docs project.

• In the folder tree, hover over the folder you want to manage, then click on the ‘more’ (three dots) menu and choose Permission settings. Or you can also right-click the folder and select Permission settings.

• A permissions flyout or panel will open to the right of the screen, listing all existing rules for that folder (users, roles, companies and their permission levels).

Add or Change Permissions on a Folder

Once the permissions flyout is open, you can add new rules or update existing ones for that folder. The basic workflow is:

• Click Add in the permissions panel.

• In the Add text field, start typing the name, email address, role or company you want to grant access to. You can also type Everyone to apply the same permission to all project members.
• Pick the matching user, role, company or ‘everyone’ entry from the suggestions list.
• Use the Permissions dropdown next to that entry to select the appropriate permission level (View, View + Download, View + Download + Upload, View + Download + Upload + Edit, or Manage/Folder Control).

• Click Add to apply the rule to the folder.

To modify a permission rule that already exists, simply locate that user, role or company in the list and change the level using the same permissions dropdown. You can also remove access completely by deleting that entry from the list, which prevents that user, role or company from interacting with the folder at all.

Understand Inheritance to Subfolders

Autodesk Docs uses permission inheritance, so subfolders automatically take on the permission level set on their parent folder, unless you explicitly change them. When you adjust permissions on a parent folder, those rules will cascade down to subfolders that are still inheriting, which is the main way to apply consistent access to a group of folders at once.

There are some important constraints on how subfolder permissions can differ from the parent:

• A subfolder can have the same permission level as the parents or a higher (less restrictive) level for a given user, role or company.
• A subfolder cannot have a lower (more restrictive) permission level than the parent for that same user, role or company.
• If you override a subfolder’s permissions (for example, by explicitly giving someone a higher level on that subfolder), that subfolder no longer simply mirrors changes made at the parent level for that rule.

Because there is no native multi-select for folders in Autodesk Docs, using the parent folder and inheritance is also the practical method for setting up permissions across many subfolders without editing each one individually.

Role, Company and User-Based Strategies

How you assign permissions often matters more than the exact clicks, especially on larger projects. Common strategies include:

• Role-based: Grant permissions by role (eg Architect, Contractor, Client), so that everyone in that role has the same access and new memebers automatically inherit the correct folder permissions.
• Company-based: Grant permissions by company, which is effective when each subcontractor or consultant should only access their own folders and shared coordination areas.
• Individual-based: Assign permissions to specific users for exception or sensitive folders, such as commercial or contract documentation.

For a clean, scalable setup, many teams combine these methods: for example, company-based permissions for main project folders, role-based permissions for shared coordination areas, and individual permissions for restricted ‘admin only’ folders.