On Thursday morning Marta is looking for a signed contract for the Nord client. In the six-person office, three files are already circulating: a draft from an email, a revised version from a task, and a scan sent in a chat. When Kasia asks: "Send me the latest one", Marta first has to work out which file that is. She'll find attachments from emails and tasks faster if she checks not just the file name, but also the thread it came from.
You'll find attachments from emails and tasks in Files, but not in one folder
You'll find attachments from emails and tasks in the Files module of Task Manager, but they don't automatically land in one shared folder. Tasks and chats have their own folders for attachments, while files from received mail are saved on request in a separate branch.
When Marta looks for the contract, she no longer just asks "what was the file called?", but also "which conversation was it sent in?". A plain folder called "Contracts" won't answer the second question.
You open the Files module in the Pro plan from the views menu in the top bar. The tree includes Documents, which is your private space, workspace folders, Shared with me, and Trash. A workspace is a space where the team keeps its tasks and chats. Inside its folder you'll find separate Tasks and Chats sections.
A task folder is created before the first file appears
Every task and every chat in a workspace gets its own named folder in Files, even while it's still empty. The folder has its own icon and can't be deleted or moved - it exists for as long as the thread does.
When Kasia attaches a scan to a message in the "Nord contract" task, the attachment also appears in that task's folder. Images embedded in the content end up there too, for example a drawing from the Draw window or a pasted screenshot. There's no need to create a folder after every conversation.
A file "from a thread" is the very same file shown next to the message, not an archived copy. If you delete the attachment from the message, it also disappears from the folder, because it's one file displayed in two places. You can't move it, rename it, or delete it separately from within Files. You can download it, mark it as Favourite, or use "Copy to..." to create a copy in Documents, a workspace folder, or your own subfolder.
On Friday, Marta wants to file the signed contract into her "Contracts" folder. She chooses "Copy to..." instead of trying to move the attachment and break its link with the conversation. The thread keeps its file, and Marta gets a separate copy in the location of her choice. Simply copying it to a workspace folder, however, doesn't share the copy with the team.
More on this relationship is shown in the example of a file from a thread in a folder.
The paperclip in a task puts an end to scrolling through old conversations
The "Files" paperclip in a task's header opens a list of all its attachments, including those from older messages not yet loaded on screen. Next to each file you see its type, size, author and date added; clicking opens a preview, and the arrow downloads the file.
Picture a Monday after two weeks of revisions. Marta remembers that Kasia attached a PDF, but can't recall the day or the content of the message. Instead of scrolling through the whole correspondence, she opens the task folder via the paperclip and checks the list.
You can add a new attachment using the paperclip in the editor, by dragging a file into the window or pasting it from the clipboard with Ctrl/Cmd+V. You have the same route to the thread's folder from the chat header. This way, a file doesn't have to wait for someone to file it manually after sending.
You can save an email to Files, but it won't show up for the team on its own
You save attachments from a received email to Files on request, using the thread menu or the paperclip in its header. Saving them doesn't share your private mailbox with the team; the saved files remain yours until you share them yourself. Files land in the Mail → mailbox name → thread subject folder; mail synchronisation itself only saves a list of attachments, not all of them downloaded.
In the Mail module in the Pro plan, Marta opens correspondence with a client. The thread's ⋮ menu lets her save all attachments to Files. If she clicks the paperclip in the header, Task Manager immediately opens that conversation's folder, shows information about downloading from the mail server, and keeps adding files in the background. Marta can close the window before the download finishes.
No one else, not even the administrator, sees Marta's mail just because they share a workspace with her. Linking an email to a task is a navigation shortcut - it doesn't share the content or subject of the message with the team. If colleagues need to know the content, Marta has to paste it into the task.
This is an important boundary between "I have the file to hand" and "the team can open it". With a shared inbox, each person connects it themselves if they're to have access to the correspondence. You can read more about organising this kind of work in the article on how to handle team email.
Where a file sits doesn't replace a decision about access
A file uploaded to a workspace folder is private by default; the folder itself doesn't grant the team the right to read it. The exception is a file uploaded directly to a task or chat folder: it's visible to that thread's participants, though only the owner can delete it or rename it.
So when Marta organises contracts, she can choose the location by case and access by people. The owner manages sharing: the "View only" role lets someone download the file and use it as an attachment, while "Can edit" also allows renaming it. In the sharing window, the "Whole workspace" row grants access to members of that space in one move.
| Where the file is | Who has access without separate sharing | Who the owner can share it with |
|---|---|---|
| In Files | Owner | People they share any workspace with |
| In the workspace folder | Owner | Members of that workspace |
| Uploaded directly to a task or chat folder | Thread participants | People with access to that thread |
This table doesn't replace checking a specific file. The "Info" button shows, among other things, the owner, location and the people the file has been shared with. If you also want to sort out access to tasks themselves, start with roles and permissions in Task Manager.
Preview helps you pick a file, but it doesn't edit the document
Images and PDFs open directly in the Files preview. DOCX and XLSX show only the text content in a text view, so you can only check the full document layout after downloading it.
For Marta, the difference is a practical one. Before sending a contract, she can quickly check a PDF; if she needs to verify the layout of tables in a spreadsheet, she downloads the XLSX. She reads text files, including TXT, CSV and Markdown, in preview, and supported video formats play in a window. For other formats, she'll see a file card with the option to download it.
In the preview, the Location field helps you get back to the source: for an attachment from a task or chat, it points to the thread, and for a file from mail - to the message subject. The arrows next to "Back" take you to the previous or next file in the same folder, without returning to the list. For PDFs there's also an "Open in new tab" option.
You can attach a file from a previous task without downloading it to your desktop
You can attach a file from a previous task without downloading it to your desktop: in the editor, click the paperclip and choose "From Files app". You can also choose "From computer". The "From Files app" option lets you reach for your own files, documents shared with you, and attachments from your tasks and chats, showing where each one comes from.
On Tuesday, Kasia is writing a message in a new task. She needs a price list from a task closed last year, so she chooses "From Files app" and selects the right document. She doesn't have to save it to her desktop first and then upload it again. On opening the file browser, she'll also see a Recent section with the five most recently used items.
She can also dock the Files window next to an open thread and drag the file onto the conversation. The "Drop to attach" overlay signals that the file will land in the attachment bar and be sent with the next message.
Favourites keep files organised, and the administrator controls storage
Favourites gather flagged files from various places in the app and show where they came from. The administrator can check usage in Settings → Advanced → Files and storage. A deleted regular file goes to the Bin, from where you can restore it or delete it permanently; after 30 days, the Bin clears itself.
In an open folder, you can upload a file using the upload icon or by dragging it from your computer. The limit for a single uploaded file is 100 MB. You can switch the view between tiles and a list, sort files by, among other things, name, size or date added, and the magnifying glass filters the current folder.
The administrator can set a GB limit for each person; the Bin counts towards this limit too. The app's data sits on the client's server, and file downloads go through the app that checks permissions. Simply knowing a file's address isn't enough to download it.
The AI Assistant reads the document's text, not a scan
You can point the AI Assistant to a file or folder as a source when you need an answer to a question about a document's content. The AI Assistant reads the text layer of, among others, PDF, DOCX and XLSX, but it won't read a scanned PDF with no text: Task Manager has no OCR, meaning no handwriting or print recognition from an image. This boundary is described in more detail in the article on files as sources of AI knowledge.
Tomorrow, pick one matter scattered across a task, a chat and an email. Open the task, click the paperclip in the header and check the list of attachments; save any missing documents from the relevant mail thread, then decide who should get access to them. You can see how Files and Mail work together in the Demo.
Frequently asked questions
Can everyone on the team see a file uploaded to a Workspace folder?
No, a file in a workspace folder stays private until its owner shares it. A file uploaded directly to a task or chat folder is visible to the participants of that thread.
How do I save email attachments in one folder?
In the mail thread menu, choose to save all attachments to Files. They'll land in the Mail → mailbox name → thread subject folder; the paperclip in the email header opens that folder and starts downloading the attachments on request.
Can I move an attachment from a task to another folder?
No, you can't move an attachment marked "from thread" from within Files. You can copy it to another folder using "Copy to...", keeping the original attached to the conversation.
Will the AI Assistant read a contract in a PDF?
Yes, if the PDF contains a text layer. A scan without text won't be read, since Task Manager has no OCR.
Sources
The Task Manager Team - we write about teamwork, AI in business and keeping tasks organised, using examples from Task Manager, software installed on your own server. Task Manager has been developed by Blue Creation Group (Piotr Łącz) since 2013 and is used by organisations including Neonet, the Military University of Technology and Polpharma - read customer reviews. We check our articles against the user guide and the latest version of the software.
