Where do reports and dashboards are saved in salesforce?

Reports and Dashboards are saved in Folders — separate folder structures for each. Report Folders hold reports, Dashboard Folders hold dashboards. Sharing is controlled at the folder level, not per individual report or dashboard.

Folder types

You cannot mix — a report folder doesn’t hold dashboards and vice versa.

Folder visibility levels

Default folders

Out of the box every org has:

• Standard report folders — pre-shipped by Salesforce (read-only — “Account and Contact Reports”, “Opportunity Reports”, etc.)
• Private Reports — the running user’s private workspace
• Unfiled Public Reports — legacy shared bucket
• All Folders — meta-view

You build your own folder structure inside this, typically:

Sales — Pipeline Reports
Sales — Forecast Reports
Service — Case Reports
Service — SLA Dashboards
Marketing — Campaign Reports
Executive — KPI Dashboards

Folder sharing model

For each folder you can grant:

• Viewer — can run and view reports in the folder
• Editor — can run, view, and edit, but not change folder access
• Manager — can run, view, edit, and change folder access

Sharing can be granted to roles, role + subordinates, public groups, or specific users.

Subfolders

Lightning supports subfolders — nested up to 4 levels deep. Subfolders can inherit parent sharing or override it.

Service — Reports
   ├── Case Volume
   ├── SLA Performance
   │     └── Tier 1 Detail
   │     └── Tier 2 Detail
   └── Knowledge Usage

Where individual reports/dashboards “live” in the database

Under the hood:

• Report standard object holds report records — Report.FolderId points at the containing folder
• Dashboard standard object holds dashboards — Dashboard.FolderId same idea
• Folder standard object holds folder metadata

You can SOQL these tables to inventory your reporting estate.

Best practice folder structure

• Folders by team / function (Sales, Service, Marketing, Finance)
• Subfolders by purpose (Operational, Strategic, Compliance)
• Naming convention with prefixes: [Region] [Function] - Description
• Quarterly audit to archive unused reports and consolidate duplicates

Common follow-ups

• Can I share a single report with one user? — Not directly. Share the folder containing it.
• Subfolder depth limit? — 4 levels in Lightning.
• Hidden folder? — Yes — you can hide it from the All Folders view; users with the direct link can still access.

Verified against: Salesforce Help — Report and Dashboard Folders. Last reviewed 2026-05-17 for Spring ‘26.