How to Organize Designs into Folders in Canva: A Complete Guide

If your Canva home screen has turned into a sprawling grid of unlabeled designs, you’re not alone. Most users start by creating designs freely — and only realize they need an organizational system once finding anything becomes a chore. Canva’s folder system solves this cleanly. This guide covers everything about creating, managing, and working with folders in Canva, including team folder collaboration, nested folders, and the fastest ways to move designs in bulk.

Why Organize Canva Designs into Folders?

Before diving into the how, it’s worth understanding what a good folder system actually buys you:

• Speed — find any design in seconds instead of scrolling through hundreds of thumbnails
• Client or project separation — keep designs for different clients, brands, or campaigns cleanly isolated
• Team clarity — shared folders signal to collaborators exactly where work lives and what it’s for
• Cross-device navigation — folder structure carries over to mobile, where scrolling through unorganized designs is especially tedious
• Archiving — move completed projects to archive folders without deleting them, keeping your active workspace clean

The earlier you set up a folder system, the less reorganization you’ll need to do later.

How to Create a New Folder in Canva

Method 1: From the Home Screen (Fastest)

1. Open canva.com and go to your home dashboard
2. In the left sidebar, click Projects
3. Click the + New folder button (top right of the Projects view)
4. Type a name for your folder
5. Press Enter or click the checkmark to confirm

The new folder appears in your Projects view immediately.

Method 2: From the Folders Section

1. In the left sidebar, click Folders (listed under Projects)
2. Click + New folder
3. Name and confirm

Method 3: Right-Click a Design to Create a Folder on the Fly

1. On your home screen or Projects view, right-click any design thumbnail
2. Select Move to folder
3. In the dialog that appears, click New folder
4. Name the folder and confirm
5. The design moves into the new folder automatically

This is the most efficient method when you’re organizing existing designs — you create the folder and move the design in one action.

How to Move Designs into Folders

Method 1: Drag and Drop

1. Go to your Projects or home screen
2. Click and hold a design thumbnail
3. Drag it onto a folder in the left sidebar or onto a folder thumbnail in the main view
4. Release to drop it inside

For bulk moves, select multiple designs first (see below), then drag the group onto the target folder.

Method 2: Right-Click → Move to Folder

1. Right-click any design thumbnail
2. Select Move to folder
3. Browse or search for the destination folder
4. Click the folder name to move the design

Method 3: Select Multiple Designs and Move in Bulk

1. Hover over a design thumbnail — a checkbox appears in the top left corner
2. Click the checkbox to select it
3. Select additional designs by clicking their checkboxes
4. Once multiple designs are selected, a toolbar appears at the top of the screen
5. Click Move in the toolbar
6. Choose the destination folder

This is the fastest method for reorganizing a large backlog of designs at once.

How to Rename a Folder

1. In the left sidebar or Projects view, right-click the folder you want to rename
2. Select Rename
3. Type the new name
4. Press Enter to confirm

Alternatively, double-click the folder name directly to enter edit mode.

How to Delete a Folder

1. Right-click the folder in the sidebar or Projects view
2. Select Delete
3. Confirm the deletion in the prompt that appears

Important: Deleting a folder moves the designs inside it to Trash, not to your main Projects view. Designs in Trash are recoverable for 30 days before being permanently deleted. If you want to delete the folder but keep the designs, move the designs out first, then delete the empty folder.

How to Create Subfolders (Nested Folders)

Canva supports nested folders — folders within folders — for deeper organizational hierarchies. This is particularly useful for agencies or freelancers managing multiple clients, each with multiple projects.

Steps

1. Open an existing folder by clicking it in the sidebar or Projects view
2. Inside the folder, click + New folder
3. Name the subfolder and confirm

The subfolder appears inside the parent folder. You can nest folders multiple levels deep.

Example Folder Structure for a Freelancer

📁 Client — Acme Corp
    📁 Social Media
        📁 Instagram
        📁 LinkedIn
    📁 Print Materials
    📁 Presentations
    📁 Archive

📁 Client — Blue Peak Studio
    📁 Brand Assets
    📁 Blog Graphics
    📁 Email Campaigns

📁 Internal
    📁 Proposals
    📁 Templates

This kind of structure scales to dozens of clients without ever losing a design.

How to Share a Folder with Your Team

Canva allows you to share entire folders with collaborators, giving them access to every design inside.

Steps

1. Right-click the folder you want to share
2. Select Share folder
3. Enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite
4. Set their permission level:
   • Can edit — collaborators can open, edit, and add designs to the folder
   • Can view — collaborators can see and download designs but not edit them
5. Click Send invite

Invited collaborators receive an email notification and can access the shared folder from their own Canva home screen under Shared with me.

Note: Folder sharing with external collaborators (outside your Canva Teams organization) is available on all plans. Canva Teams adds more granular permission controls and centralized team folder management.

How to Access Shared Folders

When someone shares a folder with you, it appears in two places:

1. Shared with me — in the left sidebar under Projects
2. Notifications — Canva sends an email invitation with a direct link

Click the folder to open it and access all shared designs inside. Designs in shared folders count toward the owner’s storage, not yours.

Using Star (Favorites) Alongside Folders

Canva’s star feature complements folders by surfacing your most-used designs to the top of your home screen — regardless of which folder they live in.

How to Star a Design

1. Hover over any design thumbnail
2. Click the star icon (☆) that appears in the top right corner of the thumbnail
3. The star turns solid (★), indicating the design is saved to Starred

Access Starred Designs

Click Starred in the left sidebar to see all starred designs in one view.

When to Use Stars vs. Folders

Stars are personal — they only appear starred for you, not for other collaborators who have access to the same design.

How to Find Designs Across Folders (Search)

When you can’t remember which folder a design is in, Canva’s search cuts through the hierarchy instantly.

Search for a Design

1. Click the search bar at the top of the home screen
2. Type the design name or a keyword
3. Results appear from across all your folders and shared designs

Tips for Making Search Work Better

• Name your designs clearly — click the design name at the top of the editor to rename it (e.g., “Acme Corp — Instagram Post — May 2025” instead of “Untitled design”)
• Name folders consistently — use a client name, project name, or date format you’ll remember
• Use Canva’s filter options — after searching, use the filter controls to narrow results by design type, date modified, or owner

How to Organize Folders on the Canva Mobile App

The mobile app supports folders with the same functionality as desktop, adapted for touch navigation.

Create a Folder on Mobile

1. Open the Canva app and tap Projects at the bottom of the screen
2. Tap the + icon or New folder button
3. Name and save the folder

Move a Design into a Folder on Mobile

1. Tap and hold a design thumbnail until a selection menu appears
2. Tap Move
3. Select the destination folder

Browse Folders on Mobile

Tap Projects → Folders to see all your folders. Tap any folder to open it and browse the designs inside.

Canva Teams: Team Folders

For users on Canva for Teams, team folders are a more powerful version of regular shared folders with centralized management.

What Makes Team Folders Different

• Visible to all team members by default — no individual sharing invitations needed
• Managed by team admins — admins control who can create, edit, or delete team folders
• Brand asset storage — team folders can house approved templates, brand graphics, and shared resources
• Organized under the team workspace — separate from personal folders, reducing mix-ups

How to Create a Team Folder

1. Switch to your Team workspace (click the workspace selector at the top of the sidebar)
2. Click Projects → + New folder
3. Name the folder — it’s immediately visible to all team members with access

Folder Organization Best Practices

Name designs before filing them An unnamed design (“Untitled design 47”) is difficult to find even inside a folder. Spend 5 seconds naming each design in the editor before moving it to a folder.

Decide on a naming convention and stick to it Consistent naming makes both folder browsing and search faster. Common conventions:

• [Client] — [Project] — [Date] → Acme Corp — Holiday Campaign — Dec 2025
• [Type] — [Platform] — [Version] → Post — Instagram — v2

Use an Archive folder instead of deleting Move completed projects to an Archive folder rather than deleting them. This keeps your active workspace clean while preserving work for future reference, client revisions, or portfolio use.

Create a Templates folder If you reuse design layouts across projects, save master versions in a dedicated Templates folder. Duplicate from this folder instead of rebuilding from scratch.

Review and reorganize quarterly Set a recurring reminder to spend 15 minutes tidying your Canva folders every quarter — move completed projects to Archive, delete truly obsolete designs, and update folder names as client relationships evolve.

Common Issues and Fixes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Canva folder feature free?

Yes. Creating folders, moving designs, and sharing folders with collaborators is available on all Canva plans including the free tier. Canva Teams adds centralized admin controls and team-level folder management.

How many folders can I create in Canva?

There is no documented limit on the number of folders or subfolders you can create in Canva. You can build as deep and broad a folder hierarchy as your projects require.

Can I move a design into multiple folders at once?

No. Each design lives in one folder at a time. If you need the same design accessible from multiple places, use the Star feature to surface it on your home screen, or duplicate the design and place copies in different folders.

Do collaborators see my personal folder structure?

No. Sharing a design gives collaborators access to that specific design — not your folder structure. Sharing a folder gives access to that folder’s contents. Your other folders remain private unless explicitly shared.

What happens to shared designs if I delete the folder they’re in?

If you delete a folder containing shared designs, those designs move to Trash. Collaborators who had access will lose access unless the designs are restored from Trash and re-shared.

Can I export or download an entire folder at once?

Not directly. Canva doesn’t have a bulk “download folder” feature. You can select multiple designs (using checkboxes) and download them individually, but there’s no single action to zip and download a whole folder.

Final Thoughts

A good folder structure in Canva is invisible when it’s working — you open the app, tap the right folder, find your design, and get to work. It only becomes obvious when it’s missing, and you’re scrolling through 200 identical-looking thumbnails trying to find last month’s social post.

The investment is small: spend a few minutes setting up a folder hierarchy that mirrors how you actually work, name your designs clearly, and move things as you go rather than leaving them in the root Projects view. That habit compounds quickly into a workspace that stays manageable no matter how many clients or projects you add.

Start now: go to Projects in Canva, click + New folder, and create your first client or project folder. Move five designs into it. You’ve started your system.