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Organizing your work with tabbed folders

Tabbed folders give you a clean, organized view of your team’s work. They keep your docs and boards in context and are perfect for project-based collaboration.

If you’d prefer a video guide - you’ll find one here on our YouTube Channel.

What is a tabbed folder?Copied!

A tabbed folder is a convenient way of viewing and organizing your files and folders in Whimsical. Instead of a simple list or grid, tabbed folders let you arrange your content in the header, so you can switch between files and folders like this:

Why use a tabbed folder?Copied!

Tabbed folders are perfect for organizing all the work for a specific project, client, or time period.

Here are some example use cases:

  • A product launch, with tabs for strategy and positioning, early concept maps, feature specs, launch timelines, and post-launch retrospectives.
  • A design sprint, starting with the problem brief, followed by research synthesis, ideation boards, wireframes, and decision logs.
  • A quarterly planning cycle, with one tab for goals and OKRs, others for initiative breakdowns, dependency maps, and weekly check-in docs.
  • A client engagement, where each tab represents a phase, like discovery, concepts, iterations, and final delivery.
  • A personal knowledge hub, group your reading notes, learning maps, experiments, and reflections for a specific theme or time period.

Tip: They’re also a simple solution for working in and out of multiple files at once, there’s no need to navigate back to the folder to open a different file, it’s right there in the header. 👌

You can always customize and rearrange the tabs in a tabbed folder:

How to create a tabbed folderCopied!

Use any of the 5 ways to create a new file, and choose Tabbed folder:

Switching folder layoutCopied!

You can switch between classic and tabbed layout for your folders at any time, just click on the folder actions menu and choose Switch to tabbed layout or Switch to classic layout:

Note: This setting is universal, so everyone viewing the folder will have the same layout.

Sharing tabbed foldersCopied!

When sharing from a tabbed folder, you have the option to share the specific file you’re viewing, or the entire folder:

Backlinks are shown on the file or folder you linked to, and in the header of the tabbed folder itself:

Note:

  • Permissions in tabbed folders work the same as regular folders. Learn more here.
  • If you copy the URL to share a link to a tabbed folder, it will link directly to the file or folder you’re currently viewing, within the tabbed folder.

Nesting foldersCopied!

To keep things clean and organized, there are a couple of limits to keep in mind when nesting folders inside other folders:

  • You can nest classic folders inside tabbed folders
  • You can nest tabbed folders inside classic folders
  • You cannot nest tabbed folders inside other tabbed folders

Summary

  1. Organizing your work with tabbed folders
  2. What is a tabbed folder?
  3. Why use a tabbed folder?
  4. How to create a tabbed folder
  5. Switching folder layout
  6. Sharing tabbed folders
  7. Nesting folders