How to password protect contracts you share

Contracts move between people more than most documents. A freelance agreement goes to a client for review, a lease goes back and forth with a landlord, an employment contract passes between HR, a manager and a new hire, and a supplier agreement gets sent to an accountant at year end. Each copy carries rates, bank details, personal addresses and terms that neither side wants circulating.

This guide covers how people usually send contracts with some protection, and how to keep contracts in a password-protected folder in Fabric, share drafts for comments, and deliver final copies as protected links. It deals with storing and sharing the documents; signing them is a separate step.

How people usually share contracts securely

Email attachments are still the default. A PDF or DOCX goes out, comes back with edits, and goes out again. Some people add a password with Acrobat or Word’s encryption before sending, which protects that copy. After a few rounds, though, there are several versions in several inboxes, each with its own password or none, and finding the final one means searching sent mail.

E-signature platforms such as DocuSign handle the signing stage well, and many can require an access code before a signer opens the envelope. They’re designed around getting a signature, so the drafts, side letters and correspondence that led up to it usually live elsewhere.

Cloud drives are where signed contracts tend to end up, in a folder named Contracts with filenames of varying quality. Sharing from there depends on the other party having a compatible account. How to keep important documents safe and easy to find covers the storage side in more depth.

Step 1: Keep contracts in a dedicated folder

Create a folder for contracts, or one per client or counterparty if you deal with many. Drag in PDFs and DOCX files, click Upload a file, or forward an email with the contract attached to your Fabric email address. Fabric accepts mail from your verified account address, and on a team you can approve extra senders. As you save each contract, you can add a comment or tags, such as the counterparty’s name or the month it comes up for renewal, which makes the folder easier to scan later.

Fabric reads the text inside each contract, writes a short summary, and makes it searchable by meaning and keyword. Put a phrase in quotes for an exact match, such as “limitation of liability”, and results open at the page where it appears. To answer a question across several contracts, open the folder and ask the AI assistant, which limits itself to that folder and cites the contracts it used. It points you to the clause; reading what the clause means for you is still a job for you or your lawyer.

Step 2: Lock the contracts folder

Right-click the contracts folder, or open it and click the three-dot menu, then choose Add password protection and enter a password. Password protection is on the Pro and Team plans.

A password on a folder also covers files added later, so next quarter’s renewals are protected the moment they’re saved. If one contract needs a different audience, such as a single employment agreement, protect that file on its own with its own password.

Save the password in a password manager, because there’s no reset. Anyone with access to the folder, colleagues included, has to enter it, and access lasts 6 hours before they’re asked again. For a wider view of how Fabric handles private data, see private and secure. Whether a setup meets your own confidentiality obligations is for your legal or compliance team to decide.

Step 3: Share drafts with the other party for comments

When a draft needs review, click Share and invite the other party as a commenter. They enter the password, highlight the text they want to discuss and add a comment. You can mark each comment completed as it’s resolved, which gives both sides a running list of open points. The annotations page explains highlights and comments.

For a client you work with regularly, create a space just for them and share the space, so they see only their own agreements. How to give a client access to only their files walks through that setup. External people can open shared links without signing up.

Step 4: Deliver the final contract as a protected link

Once a contract is final or signed, publish it instead of attaching it. Click Share, open the Publish tab, and click Create link. Name the link, leave indexing by search engines off, decide whether visitors can copy it to their Fabric, and turn on Allow downloads if the other party needs their own copy for their records. The publish page describes each setting.

Turn on engagement analytics to see when the link is visited. Link analytics show dates, location and device for each link but not the visitor’s name, so give each recipient their own named link if you need to know who opened it.

Send the password by phone or text, not in the same email as the link. If you need to change it, enter the old password and choose a new one.

Frequently asked questions

How do I send a contract securely by email?

Instead of attaching the file, publish it from a password-protected Fabric folder and email the link. Send the password separately, for example by text message.

Can the other party comment on a protected contract?

Yes, if you share it with commenter permission. Once they enter the password, they can highlight a clause and comment on it. Published links are view only.

Can I search across all my contracts for a clause?

Yes. Search reads the text inside PDFs and documents. Use quotes for an exact phrase, and results open at the matching page.

Can AI tell me when a contract renews?

Open the contracts folder and ask the AI assistant; it answers from those contracts and cites the source so you can check it. How to keep track of renewal dates covers this in more detail.

Does the other party need a Fabric account to read the contract?

No. External people can open shared and published links without signing up. They need the link and the password, which you send separately.

How long does access last once someone enters the password?

Six hours. After that they enter the password again.

What if I lose the password to my contracts folder?

There’s no password reset. Keep it in a password manager, and consider a shared team vault if colleagues need it too.

Does password protection need a paid plan?

Yes, Pro or Team. See pricing for plan details.