In this 5-minute Canva organization audit, I take a look inside the Canva account of Jihan Francois, owner of Amani Affairs, a wedding and event planning company based in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Jihan shared that her biggest challenge is keeping image uploads organized, and after reviewing her account, it’s clear that she’s not alone! With years of un-filed uploads, too many top-level folders, and a mix of templates scattered throughout her workspace, this audit focuses on helping her create a more streamlined, intuitive system.
Whether you’re an event planner like Jihan or just overwhelmed by cluttered uploads, this quick audit will give you practical ideas you can start using right away.
Resources Mentioned
- Canva Organization Roadmap
- Clean Up My Canva: The Canva Organization Course
- Canva Organization Consulting
- Organization VIP Day
Transcript
In this video, I’ll be doing a quick 5-minute Canva audit for Jihan, the owner of Amani Affairs, a wedding and event planning company based in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Now, when Jihan signed up for the audit, she mentioned that her biggest challenge with Canva organization is managing her image uploads, and after looking through her account, that’s very clearly where things have gotten a bit overwhelming.
But the good news is that once you’ve got a solid folder system in place for your images, it becomes much easier to get things under control. It’s just going to take a bit of time initially to sort through everything—deciding what can be deleted, what’s still needed, and where each image should live—but after that, maintenance becomes much more manageable.
Let’s start with her folder structure.
Before diving in, one quick tip I always recommend: make sure you’re filtering your Canva view to show only your own content. Instead of using the default “Owner” filter, switch it to your account or brand, in Jihan’s case, that would be Amani Affairs.
Even if nothing has been shared with you, the default view tends to surface older designs that may already be filed away in folders, which makes things look more cluttered than they actually are. And since we’re trying to focus on the designs and images that haven’t been filed yet, applying that filter helps you zero in on what still needs to be sorted and get that Projects tab cleared out more effectively.
Now, Jihan’s already made a great start by creating custom folders, which is a big step in the right direction. But at the moment, there are so many primary folders that you have to click “Show More” just to view them all. That’s usually a sign that the system could benefit from being simplified, and it also aligns with something Jihan noted herself: that she often forgets to use her folders correctly.
This is super common, especially when there are too many folders without a clear structure. It’s easy to lose track of where things belong, and that leads to folders getting bypassed altogether.
I usually recommend having no more than 12 or 13 top-level folders, though you may not even need that many. What’s more important is that your folder system is intuitive for you. If it makes sense in your brain, you’re far more likely to use it consistently.
In Jihan’s case, she might find it helpful to reduce her top-level folders down to just a few broad categories, like:
- Admin
- Social Media
- Clients
- Personal
- Images
- Templates, and
- Archive
Then she can nest the more specific folders inside those categories. For example, folders like Honeybook or Goodnotes could live under Admin. This approach will make her account easier to scan and help her find what she needs more quickly.
Next, let’s talk about templates.
Jihan has folders labeled AA Templates, Content Club, and there’s also a folder called Templates inside of her Refine folder, and it looks like these include a mix of general templates and ones that have already been customized for her brand.
I recommend separating those out based on their purpose.
Templates that have already been branded, like an info sheet or client guide, are best stored in the folder where they’re actually used. For instance, if you regularly create proposals, then a proposal brand template should live in the same folder as your actual proposals. That way, you or anyone on your team always starts from the correct original file, and it reduces the risk of accidentally overwriting something.
On the other hand, general-use templates that haven’t yet been customized, like those from a membership or design bundle, can all live inside a main Templates folder, with subfolders for each source if that helps keep things clear, for example, Jihan might have subfolders for Content Club and Refine.
Just be sure to periodically review those templates and remove anything you’re no longer realistically going to use.
Now, back to images, because this is where the biggest opportunity lies.
Right now, most, if not all, of Jihan’s images are still sitting in the default Uploads section, and some of those uploads go back five years or more. With so many images in a single bucket, it becomes nearly impossible to find what you’re looking for, and chances are, that’s led to re-uploading the same images multiple times just to avoid the scroll.
What I’d recommend is creating a dedicated Images or Photos folder, and then building out subfolders inside it that reflect how Jihan naturally searches for her visuals. That could be subfolders for Headshots, Client Work, Venue Photos, Color Palettes, Drawings, or even subfolders by individual client or event name. There’s no one “right” way to do this, it’s about finding the categories that feel most intuitive to her.
And going forward, the key to maintaining that system is to upload new images directly into the correct folder, not into the main Uploads section. That one small habit change makes a huge difference in keeping everything organized long-term.
While we’re on the topic of cleanup, there’s also a fair amount of older, unfoldered designs, some of them from up to two years ago. If they’re no longer relevant, Jihan may want to go ahead and delete them, and then for anything worth keeping but not actively in use, I’d suggest creating an Archive folder and moving them there. That helps declutter the workspace without losing access to past work.
And then anything that she does want ongoing access to, should be moved into relevant folders so that she can clear out the Projects section.
Lastly, Jihan does have her Brand Kit set up, which is great to see! But if she has any go-to brand imagery, like headshots or brand photos from a professional shoot, she may want to upload those to the Brand Photos section of the Brand Kit so they’re always easily accessible when designing.
