# How do I control User access to Folders and assets?

> Set Access rights on an asset, and use Access for Contents to apply them down a Folder — merging rather than overwriting.

URL: https://www.hannonhill.com/cascadecms/latest/articles/cascade-administration/permissions/control-user-access-to-folders-and-assets.html
category: Cascade Administration
article-type: how-to
content-kind: faq
release-availability: all
tags: folders, permissions
updated: 2026-10-06

Access rights, or permissions, control which Users and Groups can view or edit assets. While viewing an asset such as a Folder:

1. Click **More > Access**.
1. Select the Access level for all users. Selecting **None** hides the asset from everyone except Administrators and the specific Users or Groups you grant access to in the next step.
1. Grant Read or Write access to specific Users and Groups using the chooser.
1. Click **Update**.

## Access for Contents

Folders and Containers have an additional **Access for Contents** option, under **More > Access for Contents**, which updates the access rights of everything inside. There are two strategies:

- **Merge Access Rights** adds assignments to contained assets where the User or Group isn't already assigned, and updates the Access level where they are. All other existing assignments are left alone.
- **Overwrite Access Rights** removes every existing User and Group assignment on all assets within the Folder and applies only what you specified.

> Be careful with Overwrite. In most cases Merge is what you want, and overwriting cannot be undone.

See [Access Rights](https://www.hannonhill.com/cascadecms/latest/articles/cascade-administration/permissions/access-rights.html) for the underlying model, and [Granting access to specific Folders](https://www.hannonhill.com/cascadecms/latest/articles/cascade-administration/permissions/granting-access-specific-folders-users-groups.html) for a worked example.