Personal directories
A personal directory is a private folder that MediaLab automatically creates for a user the first time they need one. It gives that user a place to receive or temporarily store files, without requiring them to have upload rights anywhere else in the account.
Why personal directories exist
Not every MediaLab user has upload rights. Viewers and reviewers, for example, can browse and download media but have no folder they can write to. Several features still need to give these users a personal file somewhere, so MediaLab provisions one shared personal folder per user instead of building a separate mechanism for each feature.
Features that use a personal directory
The same personal folder is reused by whichever of the following features a user encounters first:
- Clip Cutting - When a user without upload rights cuts a clip from a video (see Transcode feature), the resulting clip is saved to their home directory so they can review and download it.
- Quick Share - The Quick Share extension (also called MediaDrop) places a users content directly into their personal directory.
- User Registration - When self-registration is enabled for an account, newly registered users can be given a personal directory as their starting folder.
Because these features depend on a personal folder per user, enabling any of them also enables personal directories for the account automatically, if it wasn't already.
Automatic cleanup
Files a user exports into their personal directory, such as a cut clip, are not kept indefinitely. They are automatically moved to the trash after a number of days configured by your account administrator, keeping the folder from filling up with temporary exports. Files placed there by Quick Share or User Registration are not subject to this automatic cleanup.