MyDocVault User Guide

1. Start here

MyDocVault turns documents into organized PDF records. A document can begin as a camera scan, a PDF placed in the Mac Inbox, or an attachment shared from another mobile app. MyDocVault reads the document, proposes filing information and asks you to review important choices before approval.

The safest everyday workflow

1. Add or scan the document.
2. Wait until processing finishes.
3. Open Pending Review or Scan/Review.
4. Check the PDF and suggested information.
5. Correct anything that is wrong or incomplete.
6. Approve or save the review.
7. Find the filed PDF later from Home, Browse, Entities, Financial Year or Search.

2. First-time setup

Quick Setup or Custom Setup

Quick Setup is suitable for most people. Custom Setup exposes more choices. You can change most organizational settings later.

1. Confirm your country, currency and date order.
2. Confirm the Financial Year start and end used for your documents.
3. Add the People you actually file documents for. A name printed in a document does not automatically become a Person.
4. Add Contexts such as Personal, Property, Business, Tax, Vehicle, Health or Travel.
5. Add Subjects beneath the appropriate Context—for example a property name beneath Property.
6. Review the proposed folder structure.
7. Choose local-only use or enable cross-device sync.
8. Configure optional AI only if you want it.

Important: MyDocVault now accepts Person and Financial Year values only from the lists you configured. If a required choice is missing during review, add it in Settings and choose it deliberately.

Mac folder permission

The Mac asks you to choose the Documents folder that contains—or will contain—MyDocs. This permission lets the app create Inbox, Stored, Backup and recovery folders. Select the folder itself, not an individual PDF.

Mobile local-only setup

You may start without iCloud. Mobile stores the PDFs and supporting information inside the app’s private storage. You can enable cross-device sync later.

3. Home dashboard

Home is a summary, not a separate copy of the library. Tapping a number opens the relevant filtered document list.

Action Required

Documents waiting for review, still processing, skipped, marked Do Not Scan, expiring, expired, due or overdue.

Library Stats

Current approved, active and archived document totals.

Your Vault

Documents grouped by their first-level storage area.

Entities

Documents grouped by configured people, subjects, businesses, properties or other meaningful entities.

Financial Year

Documents grouped by their controlled FY value.

MyDocVault Devices

Cross-device state and recently registered devices when sync is active.

Customize Home

Use Customize Home to choose which cards, entities and Financial Years are displayed. Hiding a Home item does not delete documents or taxonomy.

Sync and notifications

On mobile, Sync is at the top of Home. Its result appears briefly and then disappears. Pulling down on Home also refreshes. Automatic mobile sync runs periodically while the app is active. The bell shows the number of unread reminders.

4. Add documents

Scan with iPhone or iPad

1. Open Scan.
2. Tap the camera/scan control.
3. Capture each page.
4. Adjust page edges if required.
5. Finish the Apple document-camera scan.
6. MyDocVault saves the PDF in Inbox immediately and starts classification.
7. You may scan another document while the first is queued.
8. Open Pending Review when processing is complete.

Share from Mail, Gmail or Files

1. Open the attachment.
2. Choose Share.
3. Select MyDocVault. If it is hidden, choose More/Edit and enable it.
4. Open MyDocVault. The attachment is imported into Inbox and queued.

Add PDFs on Mac

1. Open MyDocs/Inbox in Finder, or use the app’s Inbox controls.
2. Copy—not your only original—into Inbox.
3. Open Scan/Review and start processing.
4. The configured batch size controls how many genuinely unprocessed PDFs are attempted in one run.

A document marked Processing is not ready for interaction. Wait for Pending Review. A failed classification should remain recoverable in Inbox.

5. Review, correct and approve

Review protects you from filing mistakes. Always compare the proposal with the actual PDF when the document is important.

What to check

• Document Type
• Context and Subject
• Storage Area
• Person, only when relevant
• Document, issue, payment, due, settlement or expiry dates
• Financial Year
• Primary amount and amount meaning
• Controlled fields such as account, invoice, assessment or policy number
• Tags and filename label
• The final controlled filename

Review actions

Preview / eye

Open the PDF without exporting it.

Edit Suggestion

Change the proposed metadata, controlled fields and learnable choices.

Approve / Save

File the PDF and record the accepted family evidence.

Skip

Leave it for later. It remains Action Required.

Do Not Scan

Exclude a document that should not be processed.

Analyse / Rescan

Run classification again when information is missing or incorrect.

Delete

Remove an unsuitable pending item after confirming.

Duplicates

An exact duplicate should require a user decision. If two matching files are both still in Inbox, MyDocVault should avoid treating each as authority to delete the other. Process one first; only then decide whether the remaining file is a duplicate. Where available, open both files side by side before moving one to Trash.

Auto/Review

Documents that meet the configured automatic-approval threshold and every normal approval requirement appear in Auto/Review history instead of the interactive Scan/Review queue. You can inspect, send items back to review or clear the review history without deleting filed PDFs.

Filename labels

A label is optional unless your workflow requires it. The review block may let you include or exclude it quickly. A family should reuse a label only when approved examples in that same family used one.

6. How organization works

Context

The broad area of life or work, such as Personal, Property, Business or Tax.

Subject

A specific item within a Context, such as a named property, vehicle, company or project.

Person

A user-defined individual. Printed names are not automatically added.

Document Type

What the document is: invoice, rental statement, council rates notice, insurance policy, passport and so on.

Financial Year

A configured controlled period used for filing. MyDocVault does not invent new FY values.

Storage Area

The folder destination, normally derived from Context and Subject.

Controlled field

A structured fact with stable meaning despite different printed labels.

Person and Personal folders

When a Person is added, MyDocVault can create a matching subject beneath Personal and a matching storage folder. This lets all-time and Financial-Year documents for that person stay together. Selecting a Personal subject matching a Person should include that person in the controlled filename when the naming rules require it.

Financial Year source priority

The intended priority is Payment Date, Due Date, Settlement Date, Issue Date and then Document Date. The derived value is accepted only if it matches a configured Financial Year.

Filename examples

• FY25-26_Property_Kerry-St_Council-Rates_25-08.pdf
• Business_Company-Registration_2021-03.pdf
• Person_Passport_Expiry-2031-06.pdf

If the destination already contains the filename, MyDocVault adds a number rather than overwriting it.

7. Teach MyDocVault

Learning should reduce repeated corrections without silently creating taxonomy.

Document families

When you approve a reviewed document, MyDocVault records controlled evidence for similar future documents. A family can remember Document Type, Context, Subject, storage, controlled fields, tags and approved label behavior.

OCR anchors and mappings

Select meaningful OCR text such as an account number, property address, company name or printed label. Map that anchor to a configured Context, Subject, Person, tag, document type, canonical field or primary-amount meaning.

Example: map Account OWN00639 to a specific Subject; map You Received as the printed label whose nearby currency value is Rental Income; map a property address to its configured property Subject.

Canonical fields

Different printed labels can share one meaning. For example, Account ID, Account No. and Customer Account can all map to Account Number.

Green and red feedback

• Green: important structured evidence to promote.
• Red: irrelevant or deprioritized for similar documents.
• Neutral: extracted information not yet promoted.

Red feedback does not erase OCR text, and literal search may still find it.

Manage learning

Open Settings → Advanced → Learning & Mappings to review individual rules and families. Edit or delete one item when it is wrong; use Delete All only when you deliberately want to reset all learning.

8. Browse, Favourites, Entities and Search

Browse

Browse shows approved documents and can be opened with filters from Home. Use Clear Filters to return to the normal all-document view. Document details may include type, storage area, person, FY, amount, dates, lifecycle state, archive state, tags and controlled fields.

Document actions

Depending on platform and state, you can preview, open information, mark or unmark Favourite, share/export the PDF, edit metadata, archive, restore or send the document to Analyse again.

Favourites

Favourites are metadata attached to documents. When cross-device sync is active, favourite status should synchronize through document metadata. The current app limits favourites to ten.

Entities

Entities provide a people/property/business-style view of the same underlying documents. A Personal subject representing a Person should appear as one human entity rather than a duplicate Person and generic folder entry.

Search

Normal search uses filenames, exact identifiers, Context/Subject, tags, controlled fields and available OCR/search metadata. Archive is normally excluded unless Include Archive is selected. AI Search is intended to interpret meaning and relationships; availability depends on the configured provider.

Multi-selection

One selected PDF can be shared directly. Multiple selected PDFs are packaged into a ZIP. Exporting PDFs is different from exporting backup/classification data.

9. Reminders, expiry, archive, trash and history

Reminders

The bell badge shows unread reminders. Expand a reminder to see summary and metadata, then open its document. Mark ordinary reminders handled; you may undo that choice later.

Expired documents

Archived documents should not remain in the active Expired list. Acknowledging an expired item removes it from the active list and records it as handled. Expiry acknowledgement is intended to be permanent, unlike an ordinary reminder toggle.

Archive

Archive is for legitimate historical documents. Archived files remain available and can be included in search when requested.

Trash

Trash is for unwanted documents and should preserve a restore path until cleanup. Permission errors can occur when the app lacks access to an externally managed file. A dedicated MyDocs Trash folder is a possible future improvement; follow the behavior shown in your installed version.

History

History records supported imports, OCR, approvals, corrections, renames, archive/restore, expiry acknowledgement, exports, permission decisions, diagnostic reports and resets. Viewing is not an export. History is synchronized only when cross-device sync is active and CloudKit succeeds.

10. Local storage and cross-device sync

Local-only mobile use

PDFs are kept in the app’s private local storage. Taxonomy, document metadata, learning, setup choices and history are also kept locally. No CloudKit connection is required.

Enabling sync later

Cross-device sync has two cooperating parts:

1. PDF files: copied into the user-selected iCloud Drive/Documents/MyDocs folder hierarchy.
2. Metadata: synchronized through the user’s private CloudKit database.

Choosing cross-device sync does not by itself grant Files-folder access. On mobile, select the shared iCloud Documents/MyDocs location when requested. Existing local documents are then copied where possible. The current implementation keeps the local originals; it does not perform a destructive move.

Future scans after sync

A new scan is saved locally first so it survives interruption. If sync and shared-folder access are active, it is then copied into MyDocs and its metadata is published. Local storage continues to be used as the ingestion source and local copy/cache.

Mac becomes library master

When a Mac joins, it first imports shared taxonomy and metadata, creates matching folders and then manages ongoing library reconciliation. A Mac-authorized global reset is propagated through CloudKit so mobile devices can clear stale local indexes and learning before resynchronizing.

What syncs

Wait for the temporary Sync result before comparing devices. Offline changes remain local until synchronization can succeed.

11. OCR and AI choices

Vision OCR

Apple Vision reads printed text from mobile scans. OCR is evidence, not a filing decision; review important values.

Apple Intelligence

On compatible hardware and software, Apple’s on-device Foundation Models are preferred. Home displays AI Ready when available or AI Help with the detected reason when unavailable.

Natural Language fallback

When Apple Intelligence is unavailable, MyDocVault can use a conservative on-device Natural Language catalogue scorer. It returns only controlled document types when direct evidence is strong enough. The current release does not include a trained MyDocVaultDocumentClassifier.mlmodelc asset, so references to “Core ML/Natural Language fallback” presently mean the Natural Language scorer unless a future app build bundles that trained model.

Local AI on Mac

Mac can optionally use Ollama. Suggested model names in the current settings are qwen3:8b for classification and qwen3-embedding:0.6b for embeddings. Models remain on that Mac and are not part of MyDocVault backup or sync.

Third-party Cloud AI

Optional and disabled by default. Enabling it may transmit permitted extracted text to the selected provider. API keys stay in Keychain. Sensitive classes are blocked by default, and a monthly spending guard is available.

Enhancement

A mobile result with unavailable AI, low confidence, missing controlled fields or an unresolved type can be marked Eligible for Enhancement. The PDF remains stored; a compatible Mac can perform richer analysis later.

12. Settings reference

Regional

Country, currency, date format and FY conventions.

Taxonomy

Contexts, Subjects, People, Document Types, Financial Years and Tags.

Storage & Sync

Local status, shared folder access, cross-device preference and manual synchronization.

AI

Availability, provider order, optional local/cloud setup, privacy restrictions and tests.

Batch size

How many new Mac Inbox documents one batch attempts.

Auto-approval threshold

Similarity required before a fully valid document may be approved automatically; default is 99%.

Learning & Mappings

Document families, OCR anchors, aliases, canonical fields and individual edit/delete controls.

Extraction Rules

What fields should be sought and where evidence is expected.

Diagnostics

Safe status and report tools. Preview before sharing.

Danger Zone

Reset/recovery actions. Read every warning and back up first.

Changes should take effect locally immediately. When cross-device sync is active, Sync publishes and refreshes documents, settings, taxonomy, catalogue, learning and supported history.

13. Backup, restore, rebuild and reset

Backup

Mac backup JSON contains recovery metadata and may include classification structure. Treat it as private. API keys and Ollama models are not included.

New Mac

If iCloud already contains Documents/MyDocs, choose the Documents folder that contains it. MyDocVault should offer to use the existing library, import taxonomy/metadata and rebuild local state.

Rebuild

Rebuild reconciles the app database/index with physical PDFs. Use it when counts or filters disagree with files, and review the result before taking destructive action.

Global reset

The Mac is the authority for a global reset after it has joined as master. Reset signals are published to CloudKit. Mobile clears local document index, cached PDFs and learning, while the Mac preserves original PDFs in Old-MyDocs according to the reset workflow.

Indexes

DocumentIndex.json files describe Stored and Backup content. DoNotDelete contains important recovery information. Do not manually edit these files.

14. Privacy, exports and deletion

PDF export

Previewing a file does not export it. Share, Save As, drag-out or ZIP actions make a user-controlled copy and create an Export history event when completed.

Classification and backup data

The ordinary PDF sharing workflow is separate from backup and recovery data. However, the current Mac backup/index JSON design can contain classification metadata. Keep MyDocs backups private and do not publish them.

Diagnostics

Diagnostic reports are designed to exclude API keys, OCR text, controlled-field values and document contents. Document names can be masked. Always preview the report.

Delete local or cloud data

Follow the Data Deletion instructions. Turning off sync does not automatically delete data already stored in iCloud. Deleting the app may remove its private local storage, so export required PDFs and keep backups first.

For the complete policy, read the Privacy Policy and AI & Data Disclosure.

15. Troubleshooting

Save is disabled

A required controlled choice is missing. Resolve Document Type, Context, Storage Area and the relevant Person, date or configured Financial Year.

A mobile document stays Processing

Keep the app open briefly, return to Home and Sync, then inspect Inbox. If it becomes Processing Failed, use Analyse again or review on Mac.

Counts differ between devices

Confirm the same Apple Account, cross-device setting and MyDocs folder; then Sync each device. Check whether filters, Archive, Backup/Private or stale Pending Review rows explain the difference.

Cannot open an iCloud PDF

Reconnect the shared iCloud Documents/MyDocs folder in Settings and allow the file to download. A simulator cannot access arbitrary paths on the host Mac.

Permission denied moving/deleting

The selected folder bookmark may be missing or stale, or the file may be controlled by an external provider. Re-select the Documents folder and retry. Do not repeatedly delete when the source file is already gone.

MyDocVault is absent from Share

Open More/Edit in the system Share sheet and enable MyDocVault. Confirm the Share Extension and app use the same App Group.

Apple Intelligence unavailable

Open AI Help for the detected reason. Unsupported hardware cannot be enabled through Settings. Compatible devices may need Apple Intelligence enabled and its model downloaded.

Wrong classification repeats

Inspect Learning & Mappings for an incorrect family or anchor. Edit/delete the individual rule, Analyse the document again and approve the corrected result.

Filters will not clear

Use Clear Filters from the Browse screen reached from a dashboard tile. Return to Browse from the main navigation if the view was opened with a fixed special-purpose filter.

Before contacting support: redact names, addresses, account numbers and document content from screenshots. Email [email protected].

16. Frequently asked questions

17. Glossary

Approval

Your confirmation that reviewed filing information is acceptable.

Canonical field

A stable internal meaning shared by different printed labels.

CloudKit

Apple’s private database service used here for supported metadata—not the normal PDF file hierarchy.

Controlled filename

A predictable name assembled from approved classification values.

Enhancement

Optional richer re-analysis of a safely retained document.

Family

Approved evidence describing recurring documents of a similar kind.

Inbox

The holding area for new or unresolved documents.

MyDocs

The document-folder hierarchy used by the Mac and by iCloud Drive file sync.

OCR

Optical character recognition: reading printed text from pages.

Taxonomy

Your controlled lists of Contexts, Subjects, People, types, FYs and tags.