diff --git a/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/FileBrowser/FileBrowserApp/useFileBrowserApp.ts b/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/FileBrowser/FileBrowserApp/useFileBrowserApp.ts
index 616bb5a6..1bd3ed45 100644
--- a/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/FileBrowser/FileBrowserApp/useFileBrowserApp.ts
+++ b/src/workspaces/officerdev/src/apps/FileBrowser/FileBrowserApp/useFileBrowserApp.ts
@@ -82,14 +82,41 @@ export const useFileBrowserApp = (
   // visit still opens at home, because a URL with no `path` means the base. Either way the main
   // (unscoped) browser mirrors its folder into files/currentPath so the Create Dashboard flow can
   // default a new dashboard's cwd to it.
-  const currentPath = urlPath ? folderFromPathname(location.pathname) : localPath;
+  /*
+    Three sources, mutually exclusive by construction: the pathname for /files, a named query param for
+    an embedded browser, and component state for an ordinary panel.
+
+    A param naming a folder OUTSIDE the jail is ignored rather than obeyed — it arrives from a URL
+    somebody may have edited, and `basePath` is the whole promise of an embedded browser.
+  */
+  const paramPath = pathParam ? searchParams.get(pathParam) : null;
+  const currentPath = urlPath
+    ? folderFromPathname(location.pathname)
+    : pathParam
+      ? paramPath && paramPath.startsWith(basePath)
+        ? paramPath
+        : basePath
+      : localPath;
   const setCurrentPath = (path: string) => {
     // Leaving a folder closes what was open in it. A pane shows a file from the folder you were in, so
     // carrying it into the next one leaves the two disagreeing — the listing says one place, the pane
     // another. Only the OVERLAY params go; anything else in the query (global UI state) is left alone,
     // which is the distinction a wholesale reset kept getting wrong.
     if (urlPath) navigate({ pathname: folderHref(path), search: withoutViewerParams(location.search) });
-    else {
+    else if (pathParam) {
+      setSearchParams(
+        (prev) => {
+          const next = new URLSearchParams(withoutViewerParams(prev.toString()));
+          // The base folder is the ABSENCE of the param, so a link to the top of an embedded browser is
+          // the plain screen URL and nothing accumulates for having gone nowhere.
+          if (path === basePath) next.delete(pathParam);
+          else next.set(pathParam, path);
+          return next;
+        },
+        // Browsing folders is not navigation anybody wants twenty back-button presses of.
+        { replace: true },
+      );
+    } else {
       setLocalPath(path);
       // Written here rather than in an effect on `currentPath`, so it records a NAVIGATION and not the
       // initial render. An effect would fire once on mount with the restored value and persist it back,