Working offline
Some tools run entirely on your device and don't need a connection at all: Compress PDF, Add watermark, PDF to images, PDF to text, OCR (make searchable), Compress image and Remove background.
Nepali typing, and the Nepali switch in text boxes, work on your computer with or without a connection.
OCR's caveat: OCR only runs on your device once its language pack is already installed locally. If it isn't, you'll see "This tool can't run on this device alone. Connect to the internet and try again." — connect to the internet and run it once online, or ask your administrator about installing the language pack.
Compress image's caveat: on your device it handles JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF and BMP pictures, and a PNG gets smaller only through Keep under, by being made smaller in size (the online engine can also reduce its colours). A HEIC or TIFF photo shows "This picture can’t be opened without an internet connection. Connect and try again, or choose a JPG, PNG or WebP.", and choosing WebP where this computer can't save it shows "Saving as WebP needs an internet connection on this computer. Choose JPG or PNG, or connect and try again."
Remove background's caveat: it always runs on your computer, online or not. Flat colour works offline every time. Photo (AI) needs one run while you're online to download its model; after that it usually works offline too; if it asks again, connect once more. Without that, it shows "Photo (AI) needs an internet connection the first time, to download its model. Connect and try again, or choose Flat colour."
Everything else — Add page numbers, Sign PDF, Protect with a password, Remove a password, Flatten PDF and Sanitize PDF — needs the online engine. When you're offline or signed out, these tools show "Needs an internet connection to <task> PDFs." and their button is disabled, rather than letting you start the job and failing partway through.
The tools that work offline are exactly the ones DocuFlow can run with the PDF and picture engine built into the app itself; everything else genuinely needs your organisation's document-processing engine on the other end of a connection, so there's no way around waiting for one when you're offline.
This applies to every tool, not only the ones above: whenever a tool's job can't run on your device — converting an Office document to PDF, comparing two PDFs, filling a form, and the like — the app automatically sends it to the online engine as long as you're connected and signed in, with no extra step or switch to flip. You only see the connection message when you're offline or signed out, never as an extra click while you're online.
One more case worth knowing: if you're signed out, a tool that can run locally uses local processing even while you're online — the Utility Engine needs a signed-in session, so without one, local is the only option available to those tools.
| Runs offline | Needs a connection |
|---|---|
| Compress PDF | Add page numbers |
| Add watermark | Sign PDF |
| PDF to images | Protect with a password |
| PDF to text | Remove a password |
| OCR (make searchable), once its language pack is installed | Flatten PDF |
| Compress image | Sanitize PDF |
How offline work syncs to your account
Once you're signed in, a Desktop sync control sits in the header. It only shows on wider windows, so resize the app window if you don't see it and expect to. It reads:
- Desktop sync — online and idle, ready to sync.
- Syncing — a sync is running right now.
- Offline — no connection; nothing can sync until you reconnect.
A small number next to it counts changes still waiting to sync.
To sync manually: select the sync control. It's disabled while you're offline, signed out, or already syncing — otherwise it syncs on its own every 30 seconds while you're online and again automatically the moment you reconnect, so you rarely need to select it yourself; it's there mainly for "sync right now" and for resolving failures or conflicts.
If something failed to sync: a Retry <number> button appears — select it to try those changes again.
If sync itself can't run: a short error appears next to the sync control — for example "Sync could not start.", "Queued changes could not be retried.", "The local version could not be synchronized.", or "The local conflicting changes could not be cleared." These mean the attempt itself didn't go through (often because the connection dropped mid-sync); nothing on your device is lost, and selecting the sync control again once you're back online tries again.
If a change conflicts with what's already on your account (the same file was changed both on this device and elsewhere):
- Use local
<number>retries with your device's version. You'll be asked to confirm: "Use the local version for these conflicts? This explicitly retries the local changes against the online workspace." - Keep cloud discards your device's queued changes and keeps what's on your account. You'll be asked to confirm: "Keep the cloud version? This stops the conflicting desktop changes from being uploaded. Your local copies remain on this device."
Signing-out and file-saving events made on this device are always synced first, ahead of your files, so your activity record stays accurate even if a file sync is still catching up. If one of these events can't reach the server right away — you're offline, or the request fails — it's held and retried automatically, waiting a little longer between each attempt, for up to five tries before DocuFlow gives up on that one event. See Activity for what these device-side events look like once they arrive on your activity page.
Where your offline work is kept
Your offline work is kept per account, on this device. If more than one person signs in to the same installation of the desktop app at different times, each person's offline files and queued changes are kept separately — signing in as yourself doesn't show you anything queued by whoever used the app before you, and vice versa.
This is also why a fresh install of the app has nothing to sync the very first time you sign in: there's no offline workspace at all until you've actually signed in once on this device.