Document

A Document in Salesforce (Document in the API) is a legacy standard object that stores static files — typically logos, email letterhead images, brochures, templates, and other reference assets — inside Document Folders, accessible through the Documents tab in Salesforce Classic. Each Document record holds a Name, a Body (binary blob), a ContentType, a BodyLength, an Url field for external references, an IsPublic flag, an IsBodySearchable flag, a Keywords field for search, and a FolderId pointing to its parent folder. Documents predate both Attachments and Salesforce Files (ContentDocument) and were the original way to store reusable assets that aren't tied to a single record. Their primary remaining use cases in modern orgs are email template imagery, letterheads, and public-facing static assets that need stable URLs (the IsPublicly Accessible flag generates a permanent unauthenticated URL — useful for embedding logos in HTML emails sent to customers without Salesforce logins). For new file storage, Salesforce strongly recommends Files (ContentDocument) instead.

The Document object is one of the few Salesforce objects with a built-in concept of public, unauthenticated access. Setting IsPublic = true on a Document, and placing it in a folder with public access, produces a stable URL that any browser can request without logging in to Salesforce. This was originally designed for embedding images in outbound emails to customers, but the same mechanism is sometimes (mis)used for hosting public assets — which carries security and storage-cost implications. Salesforce has discouraged this pattern in favor of dedicated CDN hosting, but it remains supported.

Documents live inside Document Folders, which are themselves their own object (Folder) with their own access controls (Public Read, Public Read/Write, Hidden). Folder access is the primary visibility mechanism for Documents — there is no per-Document sharing model. A user can either see all Documents in a folder or none, depending on their folder access. This coarse-grained model is one reason Files (with per-link sharing through ContentDocumentLink) replaced Documents for most use cases.

Documents do not appear in Lightning Experience by default. The Documents tab is hidden in Lightning, and Salesforce documentation flags the object as a legacy feature kept for backward compatibility. Modern orgs migrating to Lightning typically replace Document references with Files for new content while leaving existing Document records (especially email letterhead images) in place to avoid breaking outbound emails.