Store files in My Files

Important

My Files is in Beta. Workspace admins can control access to this feature from the workspace Previews page. See Manage Azure Databricks previews.

My Files is a per-user Unity Catalog volume where you upload, manage, and reference files in Azure Databricks. Each user gets their own My Files location, so you can work with files without first creating a catalog, schema, and volume.

Use My Files to store your own files for ingestion, notebook, SQL, ML, AI, and agent workflows. For shared datasets or production workloads, Databricks recommends creating a managed or external Unity Catalog volume with the appropriate privileges. See What are Unity Catalog volumes?.

Find My Files

My Files is available only to you when you select files or volumes in Azure Databricks, including in the following places:

• Catalog Explorer: Find your files, upload files, create folders, delete files, download files, and copy file paths.
• File upload: Click New > Add or upload data > Upload files to a volume. My Files appears as an available destination.
• Agent and AI workflows: Select files from My Files in supported workflows that use files or volumes, such as document parsing and knowledge workflows.

My Files can also appear in other workflows that use volumes, such as libraries and log delivery.

Upload files to My Files

To upload files to My Files:

1. In the sidebar, click New.
2. Click Add or upload data.
3. Click Upload files to a volume.
4. Select My Files as the destination.
5. Select files to upload.
6. Click Upload.

After upload, use Copy path to copy the full volume path for a file or folder. My Files paths use the following format:

/Volumes/Databricks/home/<workspace>/<user_name>/my_files/<path_to_file>

Paste the copied path into your notebook, SQL query, job, or agent configuration. For code examples that read and write files using a volume path, see Programmatically work with files in volumes. For more about volume paths, see Path rules and access in Unity Catalog volumes.

Manage files in My Files

Manage files and folders in My Files the same way you manage them in any Unity Catalog volume. See Use Catalog Explorer.

Retention

When a user leaves an account, Databricks does not delete their My Files volume. To delete the My Files volume for a user who has left the account, you can contact Databricks support. After a My Files volume is deleted, the underlying data is retained for 7 days before being permanently removed.

Limitations

The following limitations apply:

• You can't grant other users access to your My Files volume.
• You can't delete the My Files volume.
• A system-managed Unity Catalog location backs My Files. System-managed catalog, schema, or volume names might appear in paths, logs, or system output.
• My Files isn't available in workspaces that use default storage.