Working offline and syncing
Keep editing when your connection drops, and understand how Papers AI catches up once you're back online.
Temporary and local projects work offline by default. Everything is already in your browser or on your device. Cloud projects also keep working offline: your edits save locally and sync automatically once you reconnect.
What happens when you lose connection
A status indicator shows your current state: Saved, Connected, Connecting..., or Offline. Keep editing regardless. There's no separate "go offline" step, and no manual "sync now" button to remember. When you reconnect, Papers AI resolves everything automatically, including edits two collaborators made to the same text while both were offline.
Diagnosing a stuck or broken state
Two different problems can look similar. Tell them apart before troubleshooting further:
A permissions problem: your role changed to view-only, or your access was removed. Check Share a project and manage access.
A connectivity problem: the status indicator is stuck on Connecting... or Offline. Reconnect and give it a moment.
If a file changed outside your current session (for example, a local folder edited by another program), you'll be asked to Keep mine or Load external before continuing.
Things to know
Images, PDFs, and other binary attachments sync through a separate path from text. If one fails (too large, unsupported type, or storage full), your text edits still show as Saved. Watch for a separate toast about the failed attachment.
A local folder project can lose disk permission mid-session, for example if you close and reopen the browser. Re-grant it to resume writing to disk.
If sync looks broken after reconnecting, Version history is the way to recover a known-good state.
Troubleshooting
Next steps
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