A portal is how you put a set of assets in front of people outside your team, without giving them access to your library. You point a portal at a folder, decide the rules, and share a link.

You can create a portal from ioCloud, working from the folder you want to share, or from the ioPortal tab, choosing the folder as part of the setup. Same result either way. Most people use whichever screen they happen to be on.

Select the folder, open the Portal option from the folder menu, configure the settings, and click Add. The new portal then appears in the ioPortal tab.

Click Create Portal, choose the folder, click Next, configure the settings, and click Add.

Password protection requires a password before anyone sees the content. Guest upload lets people send files back in through the portal.

Guest upload deserves a moment's thought. It turns a one way share into a two way channel, which is genuinely useful for collecting deliverables from an agency or a contributor, but it does mean people outside your organization can put content into your storage. Turn it on deliberately.

If your team creates portals regularly, set one up the way you want it and mark it as the default. New portals then inherit that configuration, including password protection, guest upload and the rest.

This is the single biggest time saver here, and it is also a governance win. A default carrying your standard settings means nobody is deciding the security posture of a share while they are in a hurry.

Controlling who can get into a portal covers expiry, login and copyright. Sharing and opening a portal covers getting the link to people.