Life doesn’t come with a folder structure

About seven years ago, my wife and I started a shared iCloud album to save photos of important documents - passports, ID cards, insurance papers, and the like. It was quick, convenient, and honestly, a lifesaver. When we once lost our passports, having those scanned copies on hand saved us.

But over time, that album turned into a massive dump. More than 400 images. Some were duplicates. Some were expired. Some were impossible to find when we needed them. It felt just like that “all-in-one” file folder buried in every cabinet — helpful in theory, messy in reality.

Everyone has a system, until it breaks

Whenever I showed this album to friends, they loved the idea. They started scanning their own documents too. Some used iCloud, others used Google Drive. One person even used a solo WhatsApp group just for storing personal paperwork. Someone else backed things up to a USB stick. Another hosted theirs on a local SVN server.

Everyone had their own system. But with time, all of them started falling apart. The folders got messy. The names got inconsistent. And worst of all, we still didn’t know which documents were worth saving.

Take something like a child benefit confirmation letter. I had no idea I’d be asked for that four separate times after receiving it. Should I have saved it in a special folder? Or just tossed it in a random archive?

That’s when DocsOrb was born

We all try to organize the most important mess in our lives - paperwork - using whatever tools are nearby. But the problem isn’t that we don’t save things. The problem is we don’t always know how or where to save them.

Life happens in moments. Getting a new job. Having a baby. Moving abroad. Each of these moments comes with its own set of documents, deadlines, and forms.

And that’s how our brains work too. We don’t think “let me find that one file from June 24, 2021.” We think “that’s when I changed jobs — I must’ve saved everything related to that.”

DocsOrb is built on that same idea. Organize your documents by the life moments they belong to.

For families, students, and expats

I designed DocsOrb for real life - not just for tech-savvy folks.

Whether you’re a new parent keeping track of vaccine records, a student applying for visas, or a family moving countries, DocsOrb helps you:

• Know what to keep

• Find it fast with tags and search

• Share or export it instantly

Privacy-first from day one

Even today, I still get nervous uploading sensitive files to Google Drive or Dropbox. DocsOrb is built with privacy in mind. Your documents stay on your device unless you choose to back them up or share them. No sneaky uploads. No cloud sync unless you want it.

DocsOrb just helps you bring order to the chaos - securely and privately.

What’s next

We’re still in early access, and we’re learning from every user who joins. Collaborative features, smart reminders, and a public roadmap are all coming soon.

Thanks for being here early. We’re building DocsOrb with you, and for us.