Share a project and manage access

Invite collaborators to a cloud project for live co-editing, or send a copy of your files for them to work on separately.

There are two ways to get a collaborator working with your project: share it for live co-editing, or send them a copy of your files. If you're unsure, sharing is the lower-friction default. Sending a copy is for when you specifically want them to have an independent copy, possibly offline, possibly without a Papers AI account.

Share for live co-editing

Only cloud projects can be shared. If your project is currently temporary or local, saving it to the cloud is the first step; this requires an account, so you'll be asked to sign up if you haven't already.

1

Open Share

Click Share in the project header. If the project isn't already in the cloud, Papers AI saves it there first, then opens the sharing controls.

2

Invite

Invite collaborators by email or by copying an invite link.

3

Assign a role

Choose a role for each collaborator:

• Viewer: can view, but not edit.

• Editor: can view and edit.

• Admin: can view and edit, and can also manage sharing (invite, remove, and change other collaborators' roles).

4

Manage access later

To remove someone's access later, open Share again and remove them from the members list.

You'll know it worked when the project shows a Shared badge and your collaborator can open it from their own dashboard.

Stop sharing

As the project owner, you can remove all collaborators and return the project to Private from the Share panel. This doesn't move the project back to local storage. It stays in the cloud, just private again.

Papers AI doesn't currently support transferring project ownership to another collaborator. Whoever created the project stays the owner for its lifetime.

Send a copy instead

Use this when the other person should have their own independent copy: to work offline, to hand off without requiring a Papers AI account, or because you want to keep the original untouched.

1

Download

From the file tree or project menu, use Download (or Download as ZIP for the whole project).

2

Send it

Send the file however you'd send any file: email, a shared drive, or a sync tool like Dropbox.

3

They import it

The recipient imports it as their own project using Open from device.

Edits don't sync back and forth this way. You each have an independent copy from that point on.

Ask the AI to draft the invite message, or a short handoff note summarizing what's in the project, so your collaborator knows where to start. See Using AI.

Troubleshooting

Share is missing or disabled

Only the project owner and editors with admin rights can manage sharing.

A collaborator lost access

Check whether their invite was revoked, their role was changed, or the project was set back to private.

The Share button isn't visible at all

You aren't logged in. Log in from the account menu.

Next steps

• Real-time collaboration

• Create or open your first project

• Core concepts: the difference between storage location and access.