A **drive** is a self-contained storage space with its own folder tree,
its own members, its own quota, and its own settings. Drives are how
OxiCloud separates "my personal files" from "our team's shared files"
without mixing them together.
Every user who signs up with a full account gets a **Personal drive**
right away. On top of that, an admin can create **Shared drives** for
teams, projects, or departments.
> **Guest recipients (from a shared link)** don't get a Personal
> drive. They only see the specific items that have been shared with
> them.
## Personal drives vs Shared drives
| | Personal drive | Shared drive |
|---|---|---|
| **Who owns it** | You | A person, or a group of people |
| **Who can see the content** | Only you (until you share individual items) | Every member |
| **How storage is counted** | Against your personal quota | Against the drive's own quota |
| **Can members be added** | No — it's yours alone | Yes — that's the point |
| **Who creates it** | Created for you at sign-up | Created by your admin |
| **Can it be deleted** | No — it lives as long as your account does | Yes, by the drive Owner |
You can't turn your Personal drive into a Shared drive, or the other
way round — they're different things by design.
## Switching between drives
Your drives appear in the sidebar under **Drives**. Click one and the
file browser jumps into that drive's contents. The breadcrumb at the
top of the file view always shows which drive you're currently in, so
you never wonder where a file will land when you upload it.
If someone else has added you to their Shared drive, it shows up in
the sidebar automatically — nothing to accept or install.
## Roles inside a Shared drive
Inside a Shared drive, each member has a **role** that decides what
they can do. Each role includes everything the role above it allows.
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| **Viewer** | Browse the drive and open files. See the trash bin (but not act on it). |
| **Editor** | Plus upload new files, create folders, rename, and modify existing content. |
| **Owner** | Plus delete files, share files with people outside the drive, rename the drive, add and remove members. |
Your Personal drive doesn't have members or roles — it's always just
you, and you can do everything.
> **Editors can't delete.** In a Shared drive, only Owners send files
> to the trash or empty it. If an Editor uploads a file by mistake,
> they ask an Owner to remove it. This is deliberate — it prevents an
> Editor from clearing content the team relies on. Personal drives
> don't have this restriction (you're always your own Owner).
## Drive settings — what an Owner can change
Drive Owners can rename the drive and manage its members: add someone,
remove someone (except the last remaining Owner), change a member's
role, or set an expiration date on a membership.
Other settings — **quota** and **policies** (see below) — are set by
your OxiCloud admin, not by drive Owners. This is a compliance
choice: if Owners could relax a policy, mint a share, and then
re-enable the policy, the policy wouldn't really enforce anything.
Owners can see the current settings, but changing them goes through
the admin.
## Policies — per-drive guardrails
Every drive comes with a set of **policies** — safety switches that
shape what's allowed inside the drive. Only admins can turn them on
or off. Members see the current setting when it affects what they
can do.
| Policy | What it controls |
|---|---|
| **Sharing individual files** | Whether members can share specific files or folders with people outside the drive. When off, access happens only through drive membership. |
| **Public links** | Whether members can create anonymous "anyone with the link" URLs. Turn off for anything sensitive. |
| **Inviting people by email** | Whether members can share with someone who doesn't have an account yet (an email invitation with a magic-link sign-in). |
| **Cross-drive move** | Whether files can be moved from this drive into another drive. Turn off to prevent members from relocating content out of a sensitive drive via the UI. |
| **Owner list changes** | Locks the Owner roster. After the admin sets the Owners, no Owner can add, remove, or demote another Owner — only the admin can. |
| **Include in Photos** | Whether photos in this drive appear in the global **Photos** view. Off by default for non-default drives; turn on for shared drives that really are photo libraries (e.g. "Family Photos"). |
| **Include in Music** | Whether audio files in this drive appear in the global **Music** view. Same shape as photos — off by default, on for drives that are actually music libraries. |
| **Read-only (freeze)** | Full freeze. When on, **every mutation on the drive is refused** — new files, edits, deletes, renames, sharing, membership changes. Members can still read and download. Nothing on the drive changes until the admin unfreezes it. Use for archives, publications, legal holds, or account wind-downs. |
