Private hides a document from your workspace so that only the people you choose can reach it. Everyone else — even other members of the same workspace — won't see it in their sidebar and can't open the link. Workspace admins are the one exception: they always keep access.
Use it for personal drafts, sensitive notes, or anything you want kept to a small circle inside a shared workspace.
Who can see a private document
When a document is private, it's visible only to:
The person who created it
Anyone it's been shared with directly
Workspace admins
Everyone else in the workspace loses access. The document drops out of their sidebar, and the link won't open for them.
It also stays out of their search results and out of the AI assistant's reach — a private document never surfaces in a search or a chat for someone who can't open it.
Sharing still works exactly as before: invite someone in the Share dialog and they get access, even though the document stays hidden from everyone else.
Make a document private
There are two ways.
From the Share dialog
Open the document and click Share in the top-right.
Under General access, choose Private.
From the sidebar
Hover over the item in the sidebar and open the ⋯ menu.
Choose Make private.
Once it's private you'll see a lock icon in the document's header, and its label is dimmed in the sidebar — so you can tell at a glance which things are private.
To undo it, use the same control: Remove private in the sidebar menu, or pick Workspace (or Anyone with the link) under General access in the Share dialog.
Private folders
Make a folder private and everything inside it becomes private too — sub-folders and documents alike. Anything you add to a private folder later also starts out private, so a private folder stays a sealed space without any extra steps.
Private and public links don't mix
Private is one of three General access choices — Private, Workspace, or Anyone with the link — and you can only pick one. So a private document can't also be a public “anyone with the link” page: choosing a public link automatically switches Private off, and choosing Private removes any public link.
Who can change it
Only the document's owner or a workspace admin can turn Private on or off. Editors, commenters, and viewers can't.
Good to know
Admins always have access. Private keeps a document away from the wider workspace, not from the people running it.
It's about who can reach the document, not a separate copy — there's still just one document.
Removing Private returns the document to normal workspace visibility, where everyone in the workspace can find it again — unless it's sitting inside another private folder.
Requesting access
If you open a private document you don't have access to, you won't hit a dead end — Dokki shows a Request access button. Click it and the owner is notified. Once they approve, you're notified and the document opens for you from then on.
Approving requests
When someone asks for access to something you own, the request shows up in two places:
Your message center (the bell in the top bar) — approve or decline right from the notification.
The document's Share dialog — pending requests are listed at the top.
Approving gives the person access (as a viewer by default) and lets them know. Declining just dismisses the request — the document stays private.