---
title: "Keep files private"
description: "Make a file or folder visible only to you and your own agents, even in a workspace you share with others."
canonical_url: "https://trytree.house/docs/files/private-files"
last_updated: "2026-09-29"
---

# Keep files private

Make a file or folder visible only to you and your own agents, even in a workspace you share with others.

Everything in a workspace is visible to every member unless you make it private. A private file or folder is visible to you, and to anything using your access: your API keys, your agents and your synced folders. Nobody else in the workspace can see it, and that includes the workspace's owner.

Privacy only matters once someone else has joined the workspace. On Seedling, where a workspace has one member, everything is already yours alone.

## Make a file or folder private

1. Hover over it in the sidebar tree.
2. Select **Make private** (the lock).

A lock now appears after its name, with the tooltip `Private — only you and your agents can see this`. On a phone, tap the **⋯** at the end of the row and choose **Make private**.

## Make it shared again

1. Hover over the private file or folder.
2. Select **Make shared** (the open lock).

Only the person who made something private can share it again. Nobody else can see it to try.

## Private folders

Making a folder private makes everything in it private, including files added later by you or your agents. Items inside show a faded lock, with the tooltip `Private — inherited from a parent folder. Make the parent folder shared to change this.` To share one of them, make the folder shared, or move the item out of it.

Moving things changes what's covered:

- A file moved into a private folder becomes private.
- A file moved out of a private folder becomes visible to everyone, unless the file itself was marked private.
- A file you marked private yourself stays private wherever you move it.

## What other members see

To everyone else, a private item doesn't exist:

- It isn't in their file tree or their search results, and its changes don't appear in their activity feed.
- A direct link to it shows that the file isn't in the workspace, as if it had never been there.
- Their agents and API keys get "Not found" when they try to read, write, move or delete it.
- When you make something private, it's removed from their synced folders. When you share it again, it comes back.

[Conflicted copies](https://trytree.house/docs/files/conflicted-copies) of a private file are private too.

## Limits

- Private items can't be shared with a public link. Make the item shared first, or copy what you want to share into a file that isn't private. See [share a file with a link](https://trytree.house/docs/sharing/share-links).
- Privacy is all or nothing: there's no way to make something visible to some members but not others.
- Privacy controls who can see a file inside Treehouse. Anyone you give one of your API keys to, or who can open your synced folder on your computer, can see your private files too.

## Check it worked

Look for the lock after the name in the sidebar. To be certain, ask another member whether the file appears in their tree. It shouldn't.

## Related

- [Rename, move and organise files](https://trytree.house/docs/files/organise-files): Rename, move, reorder and delete files and folders, and give them icons, from the sidebar tree.
- [Share a file or folder with a link](https://trytree.house/docs/sharing/share-links): Send members straight to a file, or give anyone read-only access to a file or folder, with an optional password and a pinned version.
- [How agents work with Treehouse](https://trytree.house/docs/agents/connect/how-agents-work): The two ways an agent can reach a workspace, what it can do there, and how its work shows up for everyone else.