---
title: Upload a folder
type: how-to
section: drive
summary: Choose Upload folder and pick a folder on your device. Sub-folders are preserved, and empty folders are created too when your browser reports them.
sources:
  - evolve-front-end/components/content-platform/content-platform-upload-panel.tsx
  - evolve-front-end/components/content-platform/content-platform-upload-file-selection.ts
  - evolve-front-end/components/content-platform/use-content-platform-file-drop.ts
  - evolve-front-end/app/i18n/locales/en/content-platform.json
verified:
  at: 2026-09-04
  env: code
  by: content-lane-drive
ttl_days: 45
related: [drive/upload-a-file, drive/accepted-file-types, drive/upload-failed]
---

Choose **New**, then **Upload folder**. Pick the folder on your device and choose **Add**. Drive rebuilds the folder tree as it uploads, so the structure you see on your computer is the structure you get in Drive.

## Upload

1. Choose **New**, then **Upload folder**. The panel opens with the title **Upload folder**.
2. Check **Save to** and change the destination if the folder does not belong in **My Drive**.
3. Choose **Choose folder** and pick the folder. Dragging the folder onto the panel works too.
4. Review the selection summary. It reports the detected upload type, the file count and the total size.
5. Choose **Add**.

The panel states what it preserves: **Sub-folders are preserved; empty folders are created too.** Per-file rules still apply, and the 1,000-file limit counts every file in the tree.

If you are already in the panel in files mode, **Or add a folder** switches to the folder picker without closing anything.

## Empty folders

Drive can create an empty folder only when your browser tells it the folder exists. Dragging the folder in, or picking it in a browser that supports the directory picker, reports empty folders; choosing files through the plain file dialog does not.

When empty folders are included, the summary lists each one as **Empty folder** and names the path that will be created. After the upload, Drive reports each path as uploaded, or as a folder that already exists.

## What Drive skips

Operating-system noise is dropped without asking: `.DS_Store`, any file starting `._`, and a top-level `__MACOSX` directory. Nothing else is filtered; unsupported files inside the tree are rejected individually.

## If it did not work

- **The selected folder could not be opened.** means the browser refused the directory picker. Drag the folder onto the panel instead.
- Cancelling the picker closes it silently. Nothing is queued.
- A message naming one folder that could not be created applies to that empty folder alone. The files elsewhere in the tree still upload.
- For a rejected file inside the folder, see [Accepted file types](/help/drive/accepted-file-types) and [Upload failed](/help/drive/upload-failed).