In this quick 5-minute Canva organization audit, I take a look at Maggie Patterson’s Canva account to identify simple ways she can clean up her workspace. Maggie is a long-time Canva user (10+ years!) who’s struggling with disorganized uploads and a growing habit of copying templates instead of organizing them properly.
Whether your own Canva account is mildly messy or a total disaster, this quick audit will give you ideas you can apply 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 audit for Maggie Patterson, a business consultant based in Ottawa, Ontario, who works exclusively with service-based business owners. Maggie has been using Canva for about 10 years, and she mentioned that her key challenges are that her image uploads are a mess and she keeps copying templates instead of organizing them properly.
This isn’t a deep dive into every detail of Maggie’s Canva account, this is a 5-minute audit, so I’m focusing on the things that immediately stand out as opportunities for organization improvement. My goal isn’t just to help Maggie make adjustments but also to give those of you watching some ideas for what to look for in your own Canva accounts. Whether you’re struggling with cluttered uploads, missing folders, or inconsistent naming conventions, you can use this quick audit as a guide to improving your own Canva organization.
I’m going to start by filtering specifically to “Maggie Patterson” as the owner, so that I can see just her designs and uploads, and if there are any designs or images that appear on the main Projects tab after applying this filter, that’s your sign that they are not yet in folders.
Maggie already has a strong folder structure in place, with a mix of content categories that reflect different aspects of her business, but there are still quite a few unfiled designs sitting outside of folders, some up to a year old so some housekeeping is needed here, and all of these designs need to be moved into an appropriate folder, moved to an archive folder if it’s no longer in active use, or deleted if it’s no longer needed.
Her Brand Assets folder contains a mix of brand-related designs and images, which is useful, but some of these assets, particularly logos, would be better stored in the Brand Kit section of Canva, instead of a folder, so they’re always available in one central location when creating new designs.
The Instagram folder appears to consolidate a lot of social media content, and it looks like subfolders are being used effectively. If Instagram is the only social platform with content being created in Canva, then keeping everything under this folder makes sense. However, if there are other platforms being used, like LinkedIn or Facebook, it might be more effective to have a Social Media folder at the primary level, with separate subfolders for each platform.
Having a Podcasts folder makes sense as a primary-level folder for Maggie since podcasting is a major part of her business. For someone who only has a single podcast or whose podcast is a small part of their marketing mix, it might make more sense to house it inside a broader Marketing folder. But in Maggie’s case, keeping it at the top level works well.
I also always recommend creating a primary-level Archive folder rather than storing older files inside your main working folders. Most Canva users accumulate a lot of designs and images over time, and having an archive folder at the top level makes it easier to move older files out of the main workspace without deleting them entirely. This keeps active folders clean and reduces visual clutter when searching for current files.
So let’s talk about this Images folder, because Maggie has already made a solid start on image organization by creating a dedicated folder for her images. I don’t suggest relying on Canva’s default Uploads folder because, at this time, you’re not able to create any type of categorization or folder organization within it.
That said, there are still unfiled images appearing in the Uploads section, which means they haven’t yet been moved into the Images folder or other relevant folders. If an image is visible on the main Projects tab, or inside of the Uploads folder, that confirms it hasn’t been filed yet—anything inside a folder wouldn’t appear there.
Some of these unfiled images appear include personal photos, logos, random screenshots, book mockups, client headshots, brand photos of Maggie, podcast cover images, and mastermind promo graphics.
So I would definitely recommend that these images be reviewed to determine if any can be deleted, and then to file remaining images into appropriate folders.
For example, book mockups could go into a Book folder, perhaps within a primary Marketing folder, which could later be moved to the Archive once the book launch is complete, whereas the podcast cover image would probably best belong in the Podcasts folder.
And the last folder I want to talk about here is Templates. The fact that Maggie already has a dedicated primary folder for Templates is great, and it’s exactly the approach I recommend for anyone who has collected a variety of general templates for potential use. However, it looks like there’s a mix of brand templates and general templates for future use within this folder, and separating them would provide more clarity.
Any templates that have already been customized for her branding should be published as brand templates and I usually suggest storing those contextually where they are actually needed. For example, a proposal template would be stored wherever her Proposal designs are kept.
The biggest benefit of using brand templates is that it prevents accidental overwrites and ensures that the correct version is always accessible. Instead of manually copying a design every time she needs it, Maggie (or anyone on her team) would always be working from a clean, original template.
Once the customized brand templates are removed and placed in their relevant locations, what’s left in the Templates folder should be those templates Maggie is still considering for future use, that is designs she hasn’t yet branded or fully customized but wants to hold onto for inspiration.
That being said, it’s also important to periodically review and clear out templates if you tend to hoard them, so if Maggie has saved a lot of templates but hasn’t actually used them, it might be time to do a reality check. Does the design fit her branding? Is it a format she realistically needs? If not, letting go of unnecessary templates can help keep her account clutter-free.
