---
title: "03 Sharing Collections"
canonical_url: https://mdflow.cz/share/c/h0L7MvX5Cy5sST3qPnApqHOmrQ36JTVy169qJMtDMya9Kc30zm04cg9OuPSSPwvj/669c61d4-1297-48e1-8e75-e82c10a2e60f
md_url: https://mdflow.cz/share/c/h0L7MvX5Cy5sST3qPnApqHOmrQ36JTVy169qJMtDMya9Kc30zm04cg9OuPSSPwvj/669c61d4-1297-48e1-8e75-e82c10a2e60f.md
visibility: public
---

# Sharing Collections

A collection gathers documents from across your workspaces into a named set. Sharing one gives a reader the whole curated group behind a single link.

For how to build a collection, see [05 Collections](/doc/8044ae40-6ec5-4dcc-b604-efea20829d93).

## Two ways to share

- **A public link** — read-only, opens without an account, with optional commenting. Available on both plans.
- **Privately by email** (Pro) — the whole set behind one private link, for named people, each with view or view-and-comment access.

Turning a public collection link off **permanently invalidates it**, exactly as with a single document.

## Two presentations

A collection share renders in one of two modes, chosen on the collection page.

### Folder structure (default)

The reader browses the folder and document tree. Good when the structure itself is meaningful — a project's files, a set of reference documents.

### Knowledgebase (Pro)

A proper documentation site:

- **A homepage document** you pick, rendering directly at the share link's root URL.
- **A Home entry** in the sidebar.
- **Full-text search** across the collection's documents.

The search is **language-neutral, diacritics-insensitive, and prefix-matching** — typing `private` finds `privately`; `resume` finds `résumé`. Encrypted documents are never searchable.

Knowledgebase mode applies to **both** the public link and private email-ACL views.

**If your Pro plan lapses**, the share automatically falls back to the folder structure **without losing the stored settings**. Readers keep reading; nothing 404s. Resubscribe and your homepage and search return exactly as configured.

## What readers get

Readers open a clean reader with a **file list**, and read each document with the full set of options: rendered preview, markdown source, side-by-side split, download as `.md`, and PDF export.

**Internal links between documents in the same collection resolve to their siblings.** This is what makes a collection feel like a small website rather than a pile of files — a hub document linking to the rest of the set works exactly as you would hope. Links to documents *outside* the collection that the reader cannot access are not rendered as links, so nothing leaks.

See [03 Linking Documents Together](/doc/6a2085ea-444c-44ae-b9d2-43965e1ce5b6).

## Collections cross workspaces on purpose

A collection can pull folders and documents from **any** of your workspaces. Readers see only the collection — they get no indication that its contents came from three different workspaces, and no access to anything else in them.

## Limitations

- Collections **cannot nest**. There are no collections of collections.
- A collection is a **view**, not a container. Deleting it leaves the documents untouched.