Why don't students know how files and folders work?
Growing up using phones and web browsers means many students have never had to organize files or understand local versus cloud storage. Without knowing where documents actually live on a device, people get stuck trying to find saved work or share files across different applications.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Conducting day-one lectures and onboarding walkthroughs to teach basic computer operationsDid this help you?
- 2Handing out inventory sheets and mandatory training for security policiesDid this help you?
- 3Using third-party mapping tools to mimic a traditional local file server experience.Did this help you?
- 4Creating an overarching hub site to aggregate search and visibility across multiple repositories.Did this help you?
- 5Maintaining a legacy local folder structure that contains shortcut links to the actual web folders.Did this help you?
- 6Pushing automated web shortcuts directly to users' local machines.Did this help you?
- 7Emailing physical file attachments instead of collaborating on live documents.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“A lot of them grew up in a Chrome/Google Docs environment where they've never had to manage this stuff before”source ↗
“I know several college age Gen Zs who don't understand what a file is.”source ↗
“Like not know the difference between saving things locally and in the cloud and even just sub folders”source ↗
“I've got users that legitimately don't understand that when they go to sheets.google.com, that spreadsheet is saved somewhere and exists outside of sheets.google.com.”source ↗
“The problem is a few people just cannot navigate it. They can't find the site, they can't find the Documents folder once they're on the site, and they can't figure out search. They don't want to click through folders.”source ↗
“They don’t understand the difference between OneDrive and Sharepoint. I’ve tried to explain it to them as being their “personal, private” Sharepoint but it’s not clicking”source ↗
“The shortcut to OneDrive works for most people once they see it, but the trick is they actually have to click the damn shortcut. I had to sit with a couple execs and physically watch them do it a few times before it stuck. Some people just freeze up the moment they see a SharePoint url and their brain turns off.”source ↗
“Nobody has had much of an issue with it aside from our managing partner who hates live documents and would rather work from attachments sent to him. That's kinda annoying since you don't always know if you have the latest version of some artifact.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 7How to deal with coworkers who don't know basic computer skills
- 3Why don't students know how to type a web address?
- 5Why do administrators reward misbehaving students?
- 2How to improve my Excel skills for work
- 4How to clear a massive Windows C drive full of update bloat
- 11Why built-in software AI features don't fit real work