How to back up your documents

Documents are the files people work on every day, which is part of why their backups get messy. A proposal exists as a Word file on the desktop, a newer version attached to an email, and a Google Doc someone else edited. Spreadsheets for the household budget live in Documents on one laptop, and the slide deck for next week’s talk is on a USB stick in a bag.

This guide looks at how people usually back up documents, the gaps that show up in practice, and how to keep your Word files, slides, spreadsheets and text files in Fabric so they’re stored off your computer and searchable by what’s inside.

How people usually back up documents

Many laptops can back up the Desktop and Documents folders to the cloud, through OneDrive on Windows or iCloud Drive on a Mac, and the option is often switched on during setup. That’s a good baseline. Files saved anywhere else, such as Downloads or a project folder on an external drive, sit outside it, and the copy is tied to one platform’s account.

Google Drive or Dropbox for desktop give a synced folder that works across Mac and Windows. They protect whatever you save there. In a shared folder, though, several versions of the same file tend to accumulate, and telling which one is current depends on filenames like proposal_v3_FINAL_edits.docx.

Emailing documents to yourself or a colleague is still common as an informal backup. Each email does hold a copy. Over time the inbox becomes the archive, and finding the right version means searching attachments by date. How to tell which version of a file is the latest covers that particular headache.

Step 1: Copy your existing documents into Fabric

Begin with the folders that would hurt to lose: work projects, contracts, personal admin, writing. In the Fabric web or desktop app, drag the files in or click Upload a file. Uploading handles large numbers of files at once, and the common formats come through as documents: DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML and JSON, PowerPoint files in PPT and PPTX, spreadsheets in CSV and XLSX, and EPUB ebooks.

If you’re consolidating from several services, do one at a time and check each folder arrived before moving on. How to consolidate cloud storage has a fuller plan for that.

Step 2: Work from the Fabric drive on your computer

Install the Fabric desktop app for Mac, Windows or Linux. It mounts Fabric as a virtual drive, so you can open a DOCX in Word, edit it and save it back, just as you would from a local folder. Each save goes to Fabric, which makes the backup part of how you work rather than a separate job.

Nothing on the drive is stored locally; documents stream when opened. A team can work from a shared drive this way, so colleagues open the same copy. How to set up a shared drive for your team walks through that set-up.

Step 3: Bring in documents from cloud apps

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides can come into Fabric through a Google Drive connection. It’s a two-way deep sync, so files are created inside Fabric and changes go in both directions. Notion docs can also come in through a connection. Connections need a paid plan.

Documents that arrive by email can be forwarded to your Fabric email address, which accepts mail from your verified account address. On a phone, use the share sheet in any app to send a file to Fabric.

Step 4: Find documents by what they say

Fabric processes each document as it arrives. It creates embeddings for meaning-based search, writes a short summary, extracts attributes such as topics, and suggests tags. Click Search or press Cmd+F (Mac) / Ctrl+F (Windows) and describe the file. Search reads the text inside documents, so “the slide deck with the 2025 hiring plan” can find a file named Deck_v7.pptx.

Use quotes for exact phrases, and filter by tag, location or kind of item. If you’d like folders, keep them light; smart collections you set up can fill themselves from the content of each file.

Good filenames still help when you share files with other people or browse a folder by eye. File naming conventions suggests patterns that hold up over years, such as putting the date first so files sort in order. For your own retrieval, though, describing the contents in search is usually quicker than remembering a name.

Step 5: Read, mark up and ask questions anywhere

Backed-up documents are available on the web, the desktop apps and the iOS and Android apps. You can highlight and comment on text files, and share a document with colleagues as a viewer, commenter or editor.

The AI assistant can read your documents, including XLSX spreadsheets. Open a folder and ask, for example, “which of these proposals quoted a day rate above 800?”, and it answers with clickable references to the files it used. It can also edit documents directly, with accept or reject on each change.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the best way to back up documents on my computer?

Keep a copy off the computer that updates as you work. Saving into the Fabric desktop drive does this, since each save goes to Fabric, and an occasional local or external copy gives you a second one.

Which document formats can I back up to Fabric?

DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML and JSON documents, PPT and PPTX slides, CSV and XLSX spreadsheets, and EPUB ebooks, along with PDFs.

Can I back up Google Docs?

Yes, through the Google Drive connection, which syncs files in both directions. Connections need a paid plan.

Can I edit Word documents stored in Fabric?

Yes. With the desktop app, open the file from the Fabric drive in Word, edit it, and save it back to the same place.

Does backing up documents to Fabric use my laptop’s storage?

No. The desktop drive streams each document when you open it and keeps none of them on your disk, so a large archive of old projects costs no local storage.

Can I search inside my backed-up documents?

Yes. Search covers the text inside documents and matches by meaning and keyword. Quotes give exact matches.

Can my team share one set of backed-up documents?

Yes. Share a space or folder with roles of viewer, commenter, editor or admin, or work from a shared drive through the desktop app. People outside your team can open shared links without signing up.

Can I back up documents on the free plan?

Yes. File uploads and notes are on the free plan, which has storage and file size caps. Connections need a paid plan. See pricing for details.