How to get your documents on every device

Documents multiply when they move between computers. You start a proposal on the work laptop, email it home to finish, edit it on the home PC, and send it back. By Friday there’s proposal_v3_final.docx on one machine and proposal_v3_final_JS.docx on the other, and it’s unclear which has the latest changes.

This guide covers how people usually keep documents available across devices, where version confusion and scattered storage creep in, and how to keep one copy of each document in Fabric that opens on every computer and phone you use.

How people usually keep documents available everywhere

OneDrive with Microsoft Word, and Google Drive with Google Docs, are the standard answers, and they work well inside their own suites. Word documents autosave to OneDrive and open on any device signed in to the account. Google Docs open in any browser. The friction comes when the two meet: a Word file uploaded to Google Drive gets converted or opened in a preview, and a Google Doc downloaded as DOCX becomes a separate copy.

Many people also have a work account and a personal account on different services, plus a Dropbox from an old job, so documents are spread across several drives. Emailing files to yourself and USB sticks fill the gaps, and each of those creates another copy.

Over time the question shifts from where a document is to which copy is current. How to tell which version of a file is the latest covers ways to untangle that, and How to consolidate cloud storage looks at reducing the number of drives.

Step 1: Put your documents on the Fabric drive

Install the Fabric desktop app on each computer you use. Available for Mac, Windows and Linux, it adds Fabric to your computer as a virtual drive. Move your documents folder into it from Finder or File Explorer, and every computer with the app sees the same files.

Because the drive behaves like any other folder, you open a DOCX in Word, a spreadsheet in Excel or a presentation in PowerPoint straight from it. Files on the drive take no space on your computer and stream when you open them.

Without the desktop app, drag files into the web app or click Upload a file. Fabric handles DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML and JSON documents, PPT and PPTX slides, and CSV and XLSX spreadsheets.

Step 2: Connect Google Drive if your documents live there

You don’t have to move everything out of Google Drive. In the Fabric marketplace, choose Google Drive, click Install, sign in and grant permissions. Fabric confirms the connection when you’re sent back. A Google Drive connection is a two-way deep sync: files are created inside Fabric and changes go in both directions.

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides can come in through connections as well. Your Word files on the Fabric drive and your Google files then sit in one library and turn up in the same searches. Connections need a paid plan.

Step 3: Open documents on your phone

Install the Fabric mobile app on iOS or Android. It opens the same library, so the contract you saved on the work laptop is there to check while you’re on a call or in a waiting room.

Documents that arrive on your phone first can go the other way. Tap Share in a mail or messaging app and choose Fabric, or forward an email with the attachment to your Fabric email address. Either way, it’s on your computers when you sit down.

You can highlight and comment on text documents in Fabric, and those notes stay with the file, so a comment added on the phone is there when you open the document on the desktop.

Step 4: Find a document by what it says

On any device, click Search or press Cmd+F (Mac) / Ctrl+F (Windows) and describe the document. Fabric search reads the text inside documents and matches by meaning as well as keywords, so “the notice period clause in the consulting agreement” leads to the right file and page.

Fabric also writes a short summary of each document when it arrives and extracts its topics, which helps on a phone where opening several long files to check which one you want is slow. The summary tells you what’s in a file before you open it, and suggested tags give you a way to group related documents if you want to.

Use quotes for exact phrases, such as a client name or a clause number, and filters to limit results to a folder, a tag or a kind of item.

Step 5: Work on documents with other people

To have someone else review a document, share it with them as a viewer, commenter or editor. Commenters can highlight text and add comments, and mark each comment completed as it’s handled. External people can open shared links without signing up. Collaboration covers the details.

When you need a quick answer from a set of documents, open the folder and ask the AI assistant. It works from that folder only, cites the documents it used, and can read spreadsheets as well as text.

Frequently asked questions

How do I access my work documents from my home computer?

Install the Fabric desktop app on both computers and keep the documents on the Fabric drive. Both machines then open the same files. Check your employer’s rules on where work files can be stored first.

Can I open Word documents from Fabric in Microsoft Word?

Yes. With the desktop app, the Fabric drive works like any other folder, so you open a DOCX in Word from there.

Will I end up with duplicate copies on each device?

Not if you work from Fabric. Each device opens the same file instead of keeping its own copy, and files on the desktop drive take no space on your computer.

Can I use Fabric with Google Docs?

Yes. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides come into Fabric through connections, and the Google Drive connection syncs files in both directions. Connections need a paid plan.

Which document formats does Fabric support?

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

Can I read my documents on my phone?

Yes. The Fabric apps for iOS and Android open the same library as the desktop and web apps.

Can I search inside documents from my phone?

Yes. Search reads the text inside documents on every Fabric app.

Is there a free plan?

Yes. The free plan includes file uploads and notes, with storage and file size caps. Connecting Google Drive or other apps needs a paid plan. See pricing.