Getting started

Sign in

Signing in takes your email address, your password, and a one-time code. The code is emailed to you, unless you have set up an authenticator app, in which case it comes from there instead. This applies on every device.

If the emailed code does not arrive, look in your junk folder. It is the single most common reason people cannot sign in. Mark the message as not junk and the next one will land in your inbox.

Connect a cloud drive

DriveFiler works with Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive. You connect one, and DriveFiler keeps everything in a single folder containing two folders:

• Inbox — documents that have arrived but have not been filed yet.
• Cabinet — documents you have filed, in folders named after the categories you gave them.

DriveFiler only ever touches that one folder. Everything else in your drive is left alone.

OneDrive and Dropbox are the ones we recommend. On both, that folder is Apps/DriveFiler — an ordinary folder you can open, browse and copy like any other. DriveFiler is granted access to it and to nothing else in your account.

Google Drive works differently, and it is worth knowing before you choose it. There, DriveFiler keeps your library in Google's private application storage, which Drive does not show you — so you cannot browse your filed documents from the Drive website or the Drive app. Everything inside DriveFiler works exactly the same, and an export gives you a browsable copy whenever you want one. See Google Drive below.

Filing a document

Select a document in the Inbox and fill in what it is. Every new account starts with these fields, and Vendor, Document Date and Document Type are required:

• Vendor — who the document is from. A bank, a shop, an employer. A document can have more than one, for a payment from one party to another; the first one is used in the folder and file name.
• Account — which of that vendor's accounts it belongs to. Accounts belong to a vendor, so choosing the vendor first narrows the list.
• Document Date and Document Type — when it is from, and what it is: statement, receipt, invoice, policy, and so on.
• Owner — who the document is about. Filled in for you from the account or the vendor when they have one.
• Asset — a car, a property, a piece of equipment the document relates to.
• Comment — anything else you want to remember about it.

Making the categories your own

All of this is yours to change in the Category Manager (on Windows, Settings › Category Manager). Add a field to every document — an amount, a number of pages, a paid/unpaid tick, a pick-list of your own options — and decide whether it is required. Create whole new kinds of category, give them fields of their own, and rename or remove the ones you do not use. Typing a new value into a document's field opens it so you can fill in anything it needs.

Filling the form from the file name

DriveFiler reads the document's existing file name and fills in anything it recognises, leaving the rest blank. It looks for values it already knows rather than expecting a particular naming pattern, so the order and the separators do not matter. A banner tells you exactly which fields came from the file name, so a guess is never mistaken for something you chose.

Turn it off from Settings › Fill In Categories From the File Name.

"Also known as"

Every category has an Also known as field for other spellings it should answer to. An old company name, an abbreviation, whatever appears in your file names. Those alternatives are searched and are used when filling the form in from a file name — so a vendor that renamed itself is still found under the name your older documents use.

After you file something, DriveFiler may ask whether a word in the file name it did not recognise should be remembered as another name for the category you chose. It only asks when that word turns up in more than one waiting document, so it is worth the question.

Google Drive

Everything on this page applies to Google Drive too, with the differences below. They all come from one thing: there, DriveFiler keeps your library in Google's private application storage rather than in an ordinary folder.

That was a deliberate choice. The alternative Google offers is permission to read and change everything in your Drive — far more than DriveFiler needs, and more than we are willing to hold. Private application storage means the worst that any mistake or breach of ours could reach is DriveFiler's own documents. The cost is that Drive will not show them to you. If browsing your filed documents in your drive matters to you, use OneDrive or Dropbox.

Getting a copy you can browse

Utilities › Export My Documents to Google Drive on Windows, or Overview / Settings › My Data › Export to Google Drive on Android, copies your whole library into a new folder in your My Drive named DriveFiler export followed by the date.

That copy is a snapshot. DriveFiler never changes it afterwards, so it stays exactly as it was on the day you made it, and you can take a fresh one whenever you like. The copying happens inside Google, so nothing is downloaded to your device.

The export works without a subscription, so letting one lapse does not put your documents out of reach. Deleting your DriveFiler account does — that removes the sign-in the export needs — so take a copy before you do that.

Deleting a document is permanent

On OneDrive and Dropbox, a document you delete in DriveFiler goes to that provider's recycle bin and can be recovered for a while. Private application storage has no recycle bin, so on Google Drive a deleted document is gone at once and cannot be restored. Every confirmation in the app says so before you go ahead.

Disconnecting DriveFiler from Google Drive

Read this before you disconnect — Google's own dialog will delete your filed documents unless you stop it.

In Google Drive, under Settings › Manage apps, DriveFiler has a Disconnect from Drive option. The dialog it opens carries a checkbox reading "Also delete … of hidden app data", and Google ticks that box for you. Left ticked, it deletes every document DriveFiler has filed — permanently, with nothing left in a recycle bin.

• Untick the box and your documents stay exactly where they are.
• Removing DriveFiler's access from your Google Account instead, under Third-party apps & services, never deletes anything.
• Either way, export first. A copy already in your My Drive is not affected by any of this.

This is Google's dialog and Google's default, and there is nothing DriveFiler can do to change it. That same page is also where you can see how much space the library is using.

Your data

Export

Utilities › Export My Categorization (CSV) writes two spreadsheets: one row per document, with its folder, file name and every category; and one row per category, including categories nothing is filed under yet.

The export works without a subscription and without a cloud connection, on purpose. It is most useful to somebody who is leaving, and requiring either would make it unavailable exactly then.

That export is the filing — the categories and where everything went. On Google Drive there is a second one that copies the documents themselves into a folder you can browse; see Google Drive.

Deleting your account

Utilities › Delete My Data on Windows, or Overview / Settings › My Data › Delete my account on Android, opens the page where you can permanently delete your DriveFiler account and everything it holds. Your documents are not deleted — they stay in your drive, already filed.

On Google Drive, export them first. Deleting the account removes the sign-in that Export My Documents to Google Drive needs, and without a copy in your My Drive the filed documents stay in private application storage you cannot open. On OneDrive and Dropbox there is nothing to do — the folder is yours to browse either way.

The deletion happens 7 days after you ask, and signing in before then cancels it. Cancel your subscription first; an account cannot be deleted while it is still set to renew. The full details, including what we keep, are on the delete your account page.

If something is wrong

My sign-in code never arrives

Check your junk or spam folder, and mark the message as not junk so later ones arrive properly. If it still does not come, get in touch and we will help.

I lost my phone and my authenticator app with it

Use one of the recovery codes you were given when you set the authenticator up. If those are gone too, contact us — we can reset it, after which you sign in with an emailed code again.

A document says it is missing

That means the file it points at is no longer where DriveFiler left it — usually because it was moved, renamed or deleted in the drive directly. Run Check and Repair My Files; if the file is still there under another name, it will be reconnected to its record.

Something else

Send us a message. Tell us which app you were using and what you were doing, and we will get back to you.