Library: view all folders to navigate, but not documents?

just an idea: if you can provide a metadata column which contains the corresponding user to that file. why don't you create a webpage with library webpart and special view. The view filters files by column user equals [Me]. if there is change in the link between user and file you only have to change the column content and you don't have to deal with single file access rights.

Hi AppSuppAD , You can set unique permissions per file. In that case, when a user has access to the final level (the PDF file), they’ll be able to see the entire path to the file — though they won’t have access to the content of other folders, since only the specific file is assigned to them.

I’m not sure about the full scale of files you’re dealing with, but this approach does have some limitations. Microsoft recommends a maximum of 5,000 items (folders and files) with unique permissions within a single document library. link

Another consideration is how you’ll manage all those permission settings. Of course, you could create a flow that automatically assigns the correct permissions when a file is uploaded. However, in my experience, reviewing and maintaining all those permissions can become very time-consuming.

Maybe you could consider a different file structure? For example, using one folder per user, organized by year, might work better in your case. That way, you only need to assign permissions once per user folder, and then just upload new files into the appropriate subfolders.