In this 5-minute Canva organization audit, I take a look at Megan Chamberlin’s Canva account to help her get a handle on disorganized uploads, template sprawl, and a long list of starred files and folders. Megan is a coach and lifestyle blogger behind C’mon Get Crafty, and like many Canva users, she’s created a lot of content over the years, but hasn’t had a consistent system for keeping it all organized.
If you’ve been using Canva for a while and your account is feeling a bit chaotic, this audit will give you practical tips you can apply to your own setup.
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 organization audit for Megan Chamberlin, the coach and blogger behind *C’mon Get Crafty*, a lifestyle brand helping frazzled families DIY their way to a well-crafted life.
Megan’s been using Canva for over two years, both personally and professionally, to create everything from social media content and digital products to website graphics and presentations. She shared that among her biggest Canva challenges is categorizing uploads properly, so I’ll focus quite a bit on uploads today, but we’ll also cover folder structure, starred items, templates, and a few workflow tips.
Before we get into any of that, here’s one quick tip I always recommend at the start of any organization effort: you’ll want to adjust your Owner filter in the Projects tab. By default, Canva shows everything in your workspace, including shared files, old team projects, and things that may already be filed.
That clutter can make your account feel more chaotic than it really is, so you’ll want to switch the filter to show only content created by your account, so you can zero in on the designs that still need to be reviewed or filed.
Let’s start with Megan’s folder structure.
She’s already created a number of custom folders, which is great to see. Some of the top-level categories, like “Social Media”, “Mockups”, “Graphics”, and “Personal Projects”, are solid choices and they make sense for the kinds of content she’s creating.
I also noticed she’s started using a numbering system for some of her folders to control the order they appear in when sorted alphabetically. That’s a smart trick, especially if you want your most-used folders to always appear near the top. Right now, only a few folders are numbered, but if Megan wanted to take full advantage of this method, I’d suggest considering numbering all top-level folders to create a consistent, predictable structure.
That’s especially helpful when, like Megan, you’ve got quite a lot of folders.
She currently has 16 at the top level, and once you get past 12 or 13, it starts to feel a bit visually overwhelming.
Some folders, like “VA Assistant Bundle Event Covers”, seem not to have been updated in quite some time and might be better off moved into an “Archive” folder to keep things streamlined.
She also has a folder labelled “Printable Templates”, which houses many of her template designs that I’m assuming she’s considering using in the future. I’d suggest introducing a more general “Templates” folder at the top level and then nesting “Printables” inside it. From there, she can break things down further, maybe by template category, source, or intended use, depending on what feels most intuitive.
Megan’s current breakdown includes a mix of folder types — some sorted by source, some by document type, and others by theme. That can make filing confusing over time, so it’s often better to stick to one main system, for example, just creating subfolders by type of template, like Lead Magnets or Planners.
But if that mix works for Megan and helps her find things easily, there’s no need to change it. The key is that the structure should feel natural to her. If it doesn’t, the mixed focus may be the reason.
I also wanted to talk about Megan’s starred items.
With so many starred items, Megan might also want to take advantage of starred sections to bring more order to that area. You can create these by clicking the little plus sign next to “Your Starred” and then dragging items into sections.
For example, BJ’s folder, which I know is a personal project folder for her husband, might live in a “Family” or “Personal” section, while other folders can be grouped by function to make the Starred section more purposeful.
Let’s talk about templates a bit more, because Megan has a lot of them, as I know many Canva users do.
As I mentioned, a lot of templates are living in “Printable Templates”, with others appearing in folders like “Shop Stuff”. If those templates haven’t yet been customized, they can live in a “Templates” folder, but once a template has been adapted for her brand, it should be saved as a brand template and stored in the folder that reflects where it will be used, like “Social Media or Mockups”.
And if there are older templates that haven’t been touched in a while (or perhaps never opened at all since their addition to her workspace), this might be a good opportunity for a quick purge or at least a move to an “Archive” folder.
Let’s move on to uploads, where Megan says she feels the most disorganized.
Her uploads area contains a wide variety of content: personal photos, product shots, textures, word art, graphics, and more. Like most Canva users, it’s turned into a bit of a catch-all.
The next step here is to create a dedicated “Images” folder system, with subfolders for categories like “Headshots”, “Product Photos”, “Textures”, and whatever other types of images Megan uses frequently.
She also has a folder called “Graphics”, and this might be a good time to evaluate whether that content belongs within the broader Images system. If it contains uploaded visuals like decorative elements, clipart, backgrounds or other static image assets she uses in designs, those could be incorporated into the “Images” folder as a subcategory, maybe under something like “Design Elements”.
Having a single, centralized image filing system will make it easier to maintain consistency and reduce the time spent searching across multiple folders.
And here again, it comes down to habit: whenever possible, you want to upload images directly into the appropriate folder rather than letting them collect in the default Uploads section. That small habit shift can prevent overwhelm and make it much easier to stay on top of things long term. Megan may also want to do a one-time cleanup of old or one-off images that no longer serve a purpose.
And then finally, in the Projects area, I noticed that Megan has a lot of designs that haven’t yet been filed into folders, including a bunch of untitled designs and some that appear to be empty designs.
I’d recommend setting aside time to review and organize those designs, and once she’s caught up on filing, it could be helpful to set a small recurring task (maybe weekly) to file away any new content. That way, things stay manageable without ever becoming a big, daunting cleanup project again.
Overall, Megan has laid a solid foundation with her folders and use of Canva features like subfolders and starring. With a few refinements, like consolidating her top-level folders, creating an Images filing system, adding a system for naming and filing copies, and being more intentional with starred sections, she’ll be in a much better position to find what she needs quickly and create content with far less friction.
