Your folder, carried into your vault.

A connected folder is the original. Your vault holds a copy of it. Sync carries the one to the other whenever you press the button, moving only what changed since last time — so a folder of a few thousand files with three fresh edits in it syncs in a moment.

Three things stay true however you use it. 1Presence reads your files — it never rewrites, renames or deletes anything you keep on your computer. Nothing runs in the background — a sync happens when you press Sync, and at no other time. And nothing comes back down — a document you edit in 1Presence stays in your vault; your local copy is left exactly as it was.

The one thing 1Presence ever writes to your disk is its own small marker, so the folder can recognise itself later. That is what bindings are, and you can turn them off.

From then on, syncing is one press of Sync on the folder’s row. The destination and memory level are remembered; you can change either from the same dialog.

Your browser tells 1Presence very little about a folder you connect — only its name, by design, so that a website cannot learn the shape of your disk. Left there, a folder reconnected after a browser reset, renamed, or opened on a second computer looks like a brand-new folder: every file copies across again, and with no record of what was already sent, a later change on either side cannot be spotted.

Bindings let the folder carry its own record. With bindings on, each sync writes one small hidden folder at the top of your local folder, called .1presence, holding a file called sync.json. It records where this folder syncs to and a fingerprint of each file as it was last sent — so the folder is recognised again on another computer, in another browser, or after you reconnect it, and nothing copies across twice.

What the marker holds, and what it never does

• No secrets. No login, no email address, no vault content — just the destination, a random id, and per-file fingerprints. It is safe to commit, back up, or hand to someone else along with the folder.
• It stays out of version control. The hidden folder carries its own ignore file, so a folder that is also a code repository never shows the marker as a change.
• It is the only thing written. Exactly one part of 1Presence is allowed to write to your disk, and it can only write inside that hidden folder. That limit is checked automatically every time the product is built, not left to good intentions.

Why the browser prompt says “Edit files”

Browsers have no permission that means “write one hidden file”. The smallest permission that writes anything at all is the one that lets a site edit files in the folder, so that is what the prompt shows. 1Presence asks for more than it uses and holds itself to the narrower promise: the only thing it ever writes to your disk is its own marker.

Turning bindings on or off

Bindings are on by default. If you decline the prompt, the folder connects without them and everything still works — on this computer, in this browser, until you clear the site’s data or reconnect the folder. What you give up is recognition anywhere else: another computer treats the folder as new, copies everything across again, and asks about any files already at the destination.

A folder without bindings shows bindings off on its row, with a turn on link beside it. Turning them on asks for the permission once, and the choice is remembered — it is never asked again unprompted. Folders connected before bindings existed show the same link.

One more thing the marker makes possible: if you connect a copy of a folder that already syncs — a clone, or a backup you restored — 1Presence recognises the shared marker and asks whether to sync it as a separate folder or use this copy instead, rather than letting two folders drive one destination.

Each sync copies only what changed. A file that is new or different on your computer goes up. An unchanged one is skipped without even being read. A file you deleted locally stays in your vault — sync adds and updates; it never deletes.

Syncing into a folder that already has files

You can aim a folder at any vault folder, including one you already use. Files already there that your folder does not have are never touched. Your folder merges in alongside them, and a subfolder with a matching name merges rather than duplicating.

Same name, same place, and no record of having sent it — that is the one case that needs your say. 1Presence cannot tell whether such a document is a copy it made earlier or work you or an agent did in the vault, so it stops before writing anything and asks. The dialog lists the files and says which were last written in 1Presence, then offers three choices:

• Keep what’s in my vault — the safe choice, and the default. The other files copy across; these stay exactly as they are.
• Use my local copies — replaces them with the files from your computer. The earlier versions stay in each file’s history for a while.
• Pick a different folder — back to the destination picker, with nothing written.

Whichever you choose, both copies are remembered from then on. The question is asked once per folder, not on every sync — and a later change on either side is spotted properly.

Changed in both places

Once 1Presence has a record of a file, it can see when the vault copy has changed since it last wrote it. If your local copy changed too, the file is left alone and listed in the summary as changed in your vault since the last sync, with a Use my local copies button if you want your version to win. Your computer’s file is untouched either way. If only the vault copy changed, nothing happens at all — your edit in 1Presence stands.

The document says where it came from

Open a synced document in your vault and a line at the top names the folder it came from and when. If it has been edited in 1Presence since — by you or by an agent — it says so too, and what the next sync will do: replace this version, with the current one kept in the file’s history. Nothing is broken when you see that line; the vault copy being ahead is a normal outcome of a one-way sync.

There is no schedule and no background process. A sync runs when you press Sync, in the browser window you press it in, and stops if you close that window. Between syncs, nothing is watched and nothing moves.

Because the connection lives in your browser, syncing happens from the computer the folder is on. The folder’s row in Connect Folders shows when it last synced and where. On your phone, the synced files are simply there in your vault — readable, searchable and editable like anything else.

Browsers re-check folder access from time to time, so after a long gap you may be asked to reconnect the folder before syncing. With bindings on, that costs nothing: the folder is recognised and the sync picks up where it left off.

The memory level you choose in the sync dialog is set on the destination folder in your vault, not on the folder on your computer. It is the same dial every vault folder has: open the destination folder in your vault later and you can change it there, and whatever the next sync brings in follows the folder’s setting.

• Remember every file — the facts inside each file are distilled into memory and come back on their own. Best for a small, focused folder.
• Remember the gist — your agents hold the folder as a whole and point you into it when it matters. The comfortable choice for a big folder.
• Keep as searchable files — nothing is raised unprompted, but the full content is found the moment you ask.
• Just store them — kept safe, outside memory and search. Opened only when you name one.

The suggestion comes from what 1Presence found in the folder: a handful of documents suggests remembering every file; hundreds suggests the gist; a folder of photos and video suggests storing them, since there is no text to distil. Any subfolder you have already given its own level keeps it — your choice is applied around it, and the summary names which ones.

The memory guide’s How it comes back explains the dial in full.

To decide what changed, 1Presence first compares each file’s modified time and size with what it recorded last time. Both are available without opening the file, which is what lets a large folder sync in seconds. Only when they differ does it read the file and compare its contents — so a file whose timestamp moved but whose contents did not, such as one restored from a backup, is recognised as unchanged and not sent again.

That shortcut trusts one thing: that a file with the same modified time and size has the same contents. Strict sync does not trust it. It reads every file and compares by content, which takes longer in proportion to the folder’s size. Turn it on when a file may have changed without its modified time moving — some tools preserve timestamps when they write — or when you simply want certainty that the vault matches. The tick box is in the sync dialog, and the setting is remembered for that folder.

Remove a folder from its page in your vault. Disconnecting applies to this computer only and is reversible by reconnecting — the marker stays on disk, so the folder is still recognised if you change your mind. You can also clear out what its syncs put in the vault: copies that match what the sync wrote are pre-selected; anything edited in 1Presence since is kept unless you tick it; files in that folder the sync never wrote are never touched. Removed files go to the bin.

• Browser. Chrome, Edge and other Chromium-based browsers on a computer. Safari and Firefox do not yet offer the underlying folder access, and phone browsers do not expose it.
• File size. Files over 10 MB are skipped rather than half-copied. A sync handles up to 5,000 files in one run; sync again to continue past that.
• What is skipped. Hidden files and folders, and the tooling folders a project drags along — build output, dependency caches, version-control internals — are left out.
• One computer syncs it. The connection lives in the browser you connected it from, so that is where Sync runs. Everything it brings in is in your vault everywhere.