Organize a Level with the Outliner and Folders

The panel that quietly saves your sanity

Once you start placing things in a level, the count climbs fast: a floor, some walls, a few lights, a player start, a dozen rocks, a sky. Within an hour you can have a hundred actors. (Remember, an 'actor' is anything placed in a level — a mesh, a light, the player start.) Find one specific lamp among all of that by clicking around the viewport and you'll lose minutes every single time.

The World Outliner — that list panel, usually top-right — is the cure. It shows every actor in your level as a searchable, sortable, foldered list. Spending ten minutes learning to keep it tidy is one of the best-value habits a beginner can build. A clean Outliner means you find things instantly, never lose an actor again, and can hand your project to your future self (or a teammate) without an apology.

Tidy your level, step by step

Work top to bottom. Each row stays ticked even if you close the page and come back, so you can clean up at your own pace.

1. ✓
   1Find an actor with search

   At the top of the Outliner there's a search box. Start typing part of an actor's name — say 'wall' — and the list instantly narrows to matching actors.

   Click a result to select it in the level. This is the fastest way to grab a specific actor without hunting in the viewport.

   TipClear the search box (the little X) to see the whole list again. Search only filters what's shown — it never deletes anything.

2. ✓
   2Rename an actor to something meaningful

   Names like 'StaticMeshActor_3' tell you nothing. Double-click an actor's name in the Outliner (or select it and press F2) to rename it.

   Give it a name you'd recognise in a list: 'Wall_North', 'Lamp_Entrance', 'Floor_Main'. Press Enter to confirm.

   TipRename actors as you place them, not in a giant cleanup later. Ten seconds now beats ten minutes of detective work next week.

3. ✓
   3Create a folder

   Right-click in an empty area of the Outliner and choose to create a new folder (there's also a small 'new folder' button in the Outliner's toolbar). A folder appears in the list.

   Rename the folder the same way you renamed an actor — something like 'Lighting', 'Walls' or 'Props'.

   TipFolders in the Outliner are purely organisational. They group the list for YOU; they don't change anything about how the level runs or how actors behave.

4. ✓
   4Move actors into folders

   Select one or more actors in the Outliner (click, then Ctrl+click to add more, or Shift+click for a range), then drag them onto a folder to drop them inside.

   You can also right-click selected actors and use the 'Move to' / folder option from the menu. Repeat until your loose actors are sorted into sensible groups.

   TipA folder with a little arrow can be collapsed. Collapse the groups you're not working on to shrink a 100-item list down to a handful of tidy rows.

5. ✓
   5Hide an actor to get it out of the way

   Hover over an actor (or folder) in the Outliner and you'll see an eye icon. Click it to hide that actor in the editor viewport; click again to show it.

   Hiding a whole folder hides everything in it at once — great for tucking away the walls while you fiddle with the floor.

   TipThis eye only hides things in the EDITOR while you work — it does not remove them from your game. Press H with an actor selected to hide it, and Ctrl+H to bring everything back.

6. ✓
   6Filter by type

   Next to the search box is a filter (funnel) icon. Open it and you can show only certain kinds of actor — for example only Lights, or only Static Meshes.

   Turn a filter on to focus on one job (say, tweaking all your lights), then turn it off to see the full level again.

   TipFilters stack with the search box. Filter to 'Lights' and type 'point' to see just your point lights — a precise way to find one needle in the haystack.

A naming convention you can actually stick to

A 'naming convention' is just an agreed pattern for naming things so the list stays scannable. You don't need anything fancy — the only rule that matters is being consistent.

A friendly beginner pattern is Category_Description, optionally with a number: 'Wall_North', 'Light_Sun', 'Prop_Barrel_01'. Put the category first so related actors sort together alphabetically and cluster in the list. Pair that with matching folder names ('Walls', 'Lighting', 'Props') and your Outliner reads like a tidy table of contents instead of a junk drawer.