Module 1 of StartCloud's Microsoft 365 Everyday Skills learning pathway, in five short units with a knowledge check: why there are really only two storage places (OneDrive for your own work, SharePoint for shared work), how Teams is a front door onto SharePoint rather than a third location, the difference between posting a file in a channel and attaching it in a chat, the single question that decides where any file belongs, and the four places work files should never end up.
Where Your Stuff Actually Lives
There are really only two places
Almost everyone using Microsoft 365 has quietly wondered the same thing and never asked, because it feels like something you should already know: where is this file supposed to go?
It is a completely fair question, because there appear to be about five options and nobody explains the difference. The good news is that there are really only two, and once you see it you cannot unsee it.
Your own work files. Drafts, notes, the thing you are still thinking about. Nothing in here is shared with anyone until you deliberately share it. Think of it as your desk drawer at work: it belongs to the business, but it is yours to organise and nobody else is rummaging through it.
Work the business owns. Client folders, project files, templates, policies, the quote somebody will need when you are on leave. Everyone with access to the site can reach the files in it, which is the entire point rather than a problem.
It does not add a third place. Teams is a front door, and the next unit is about what is behind it. Once you understand that, the whole thing stops being confusing and starts being obvious.
Here is the thing that makes everything click, and hardly anyone is told it: every file in Teams is really a SharePoint file.
When someone creates a team, a SharePoint site is created behind it automatically. Each channel in that team gets a folder inside the team's document library. When you drop a file into a channel, it goes into that folder. Teams is just a nicer window onto it, sitting next to the conversation.
Everyone in the team can reach it, now and in two years, whether or not they were watching the conversation that day. This is usually what you want for work that belongs to the business.
It is your file, shared with whoever is in that chat. If you leave, or if somebody new joins the project, that file is sitting in a personal space nobody thinks to look in. This is the single most common way work quietly goes missing.
A private channel does not use a folder in the team site, it gets its own separate SharePoint site. And when you post a file straight into a channel conversation, it lands in that channel's top-level folder, because Teams does not ask you where to put it. If you want it filed properly, put it in the right folder first and then share a link to it in the conversation.
A message in Teams does not contain the file, it contains a link to it. So if somebody deletes the file from the Files tab, the file goes but the message stays, and the link stops working. Nothing has gone wrong with Teams. You are looking at a signpost to somewhere that no longer exists.
You do not need a filing policy to get this right day to day. You need one question, asked before you save anything.
If I were off sick tomorrow, would somebody need this?
Yes, it goes somewhere shared. No, your OneDrive is fine. That is the whole rule.
- A draft you are not ready to show anyone
- Your own notes and working files
- A scratch copy you are experimenting with
- Your expense receipts and personal admin for work
- Anything to do with a client or a job
- Quotes, invoices, contracts and their working files
- Templates and anything more than one person uses
- The finished version of that draft, once it is finished
Draft it in your own space, then move it into the team's library when it becomes something the business owns. You can move files between the two, and the sensible habit is to move it the moment somebody else needs to see it, rather than emailing them a copy. That is the next module.
Just as useful as knowing where things go is knowing where they end up instead. None of these are signs of carelessness. They are what happens when nobody explained the system, which is exactly what this module is fixing.
Not backed up in any way you can rely on, invisible to everyone else, and gone with the laptop if it is lost or stolen. Downloads in particular is where files go to be forgotten. If it matters, it does not live there.
Common in businesses that moved to Microsoft 365 and never quite finished. Two sources of truth is worse than either one on its own, because now nobody knows which copy is current. Worth asking your IT provider what the plan is.
Once a file is an attachment it stops being the file and becomes a photocopy. Every reply makes another one. The next module is entirely about this, because it is the habit that causes the most damage.
Usually started with good intentions when something was awkward to share. It puts company data somewhere the business does not control and cannot recover, and it will not survive you leaving. If sharing is hard, that is worth raising rather than working around.
Open your desktop and your Downloads folder and look for anything work-related that only exists there. There is usually more than you expect. Move the ones that matter into the right place, and delete the rest with a clear conscience. Fifteen minutes, and it is the single most useful thing in this module.
- learn.microsoft.com: Set up file storage and sharing in Microsoft 365
- learn.microsoft.com: Intro to file collaboration in Microsoft 365, powered by SharePoint
- learn.microsoft.com: Overview of Teams and SharePoint integration
- learn.microsoft.com: Limits and specifications for Microsoft Teams, including channel storage
Checked against Microsoft documentation at the time of writing (August 2026). Microsoft changes the interface regularly, so buttons may have moved even where the underlying behaviour has not.
Knowledge check
5 quick questions. Get 4 right and the module is yours.
1. You drop a file into a Teams channel. Where does it actually go?
2. You attach a file in a one to one Teams chat instead. Where does that one go?
3. What is the quickest way to decide where a file belongs?
4. Someone deleted a file and now an old Teams message shows a broken link. What happened?
5. Which of these is the riskiest place to keep the only copy of a client file?