How to Set Up Shared Folders on Synology NAS – Step‑by‑Step Guide

Create a User Account for Every Person First

The order matters more than any single setting: users first, groups second, folders third, permissions last. Start in DSM at Control Panel → User & Group → User tab → Create, and make one account per person with their name and a strong password. Repeat for every team member — five minutes per person, once. Keep the built-in admin account for administration only, never for daily file work.

Make Groups That Match Your Teams

Groups are the whole trick of a clean setup, because permissions will be given to groups — not to people. Go to User & Group → Group tab → Create and name the groups after your teams, exactly as in the video: accounts-team, sales-team and managers. Then add each user to the groups they belong to. One person can sit in several groups — that is normal and fine. When someone later joins, leaves or changes team, you change the group once instead of hunting through every folder.

Create the Shared Folder

Now the folder itself — a shared folder is the top-level unit DSM manages, and everything else (subfolders, files) lives inside it. Open Control Panel → Shared Folder → Create → Create Shared Folder and follow the wizard: give it a short, clear name like accounts or office, pick the volume it should live on, and add a short description. Tick Enable Recycle Bin in the wizard, so files people delete land in the folder's #recycle subfolder instead of vanishing — future you says thank you. Skip encryption unless you truly need it; an encrypted folder must be mounted before anyone can use it. Only users in the administrators group can create shared folders.

Give Permissions to Groups, Not People

Select the new folder → Edit → Permissions tab. For every group you have three honest choices: Read/Write (open, change and delete), Read only (open and copy, but not change) or No access (the folder is completely closed). Set each group's level — for example, accounts-team gets Read/Write on the accounts folder while everyone else gets No access, and the whole office gets Read/Write on the general office folder. Leave individual user entries alone unless there is a real exception; exceptions are where clean setups go to die.

Turn On SMB and Connect from a PC

Folders nobody can open are just expensive storage. The SMB service is what Windows and modern Macs use to connect, so open Control Panel → File Services → SMB tab, tick Enable SMB service and click Apply. On DSM 7, also open the Advanced tab there and enable WS-Discovery, so the NAS shows up under Windows Network by itself. Then, from a Windows PC, press Win + R and type the NAS name and folder name like this (use your own NAS name — or its IP address — and your folder):

\\OFFICE-NAS\accounts

Log in with the person's own NAS username and password — not the admin account. Once the folder opens, you can right-click it in File Explorer and choose Map network drive to give it a permanent drive letter on that PC.

Test as a Normal User Before Announcing It

Finish by logging in as one ordinary user and trying to open every folder. You should see exactly what that person is meant to see — no more, no less. A folder they cannot open is a permission problem to fix now, while the setup is small; a folder they should not see at all can be hidden with Hide folders and files from users without permissions in the folder's Edit screen. This two-minute test is the difference between a setup and a hope.