TL;DR: Folders organize your lead lists by team, campaign, or stage. Share at the folder level to grant access to every list inside it at once.
Lead List Folders
Folders are how you keep a Cleanlist workspace tidy as it grows from a handful of lists to hundreds. They let you group lists by anything that makes sense for your team — campaign, region, customer segment, sales stage — and apply permissions at the folder level.
What folders give you
- Nested organization — folders can contain folders, no depth limit
- Bulk operations — move, archive, or delete lists in bulk by selecting a folder
- Inherited sharing — sharing a folder shares every list inside it
- Filtered views — open a folder to see only the lists inside it
Common folder layouts
| Layout | Example structure |
|---|---|
| By campaign | Q1 Outbound / VP Sales SaaS, Q1 Outbound / Heads of RevOps |
| By team | Sales / SDR Pod 1, Sales / SDR Pod 2, Marketing / Webinar Followups |
| By stage | Active, Working, Archived, Won, Lost |
| By customer segment | Enterprise, Mid-market, SMB |
The right structure depends on how your team thinks about leads. Pick one and stay consistent.
Creating folders
- Open Lead Lists in the portal
- Click New folder
- Name it
- Drag-and-drop existing lists into it, or use Move to folder from any list's action menu
Sharing a folder
- Open the folder
- Click Share
- Pick teammates and roles:
- Viewer — read-only access to every list in the folder
- Editor — can modify rows, add columns, run actions
Sharing is inherited recursively — sharing a parent folder shares every nested folder and list inside it. You can override on a per-list basis if you need finer-grained control.
The DEFAULT list
Every Cleanlist user has a protected DEFAULT lead list that collects contacts enriched via the Public API. The DEFAULT list lives at the workspace root by default — you can move it into any folder you want, but you can't delete it.
See Lead Lists API for details.
Folder permissions and visibility
| Action | Required role |
|---|---|
| View a folder | Viewer or Editor on the folder (or any parent) |
| Add a list to a folder | Editor on the folder |
| Move a list between folders | Editor on both source and destination |
| Delete a folder | Editor on the folder; protected lists inside are kept |
| Share a folder | Owner or Editor |
Tips
- Archive, don't delete. Create an
Archivedfolder for old lists you might want to revisit. Cheaper than deletion and still keeps the workspace clean. - Use prefixes for sort order.
01 - Active,02 - Working,03 - Archivedkeeps the most-used folders at the top. - One folder per campaign. Easier to share with the SDR running it, easier to delete when the campaign wraps.
- Combine with filters and Smart Columns. Folder structure handles "what bucket is this list in?"; filters and Smart Columns handle "which rows inside the list matter right now?"