> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trydear.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Documents: how Dear saves and manages your writing

> Learn what a Dear document contains, how to create and open documents from the document list, and how saving works locally and with cloud sync.

A document in Dear holds everything belonging to a single piece of writing: your index cards, your draft, and the state of your workspace — which mode is active, which outline structure you chose, and how wide you have set the text canvas. When you open a document, you pick up exactly where you left off.

## What a document contains

Every document stores the following:

| What is stored                  | Details                                                              |
| ------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Your draft**                  | The text you have written in Write mode                              |
| **Your index cards**            | The ordered list of cards from Outline, including headers and topics |
| **Your last active mode**       | Whether you were in Outline or Write when you last saved             |
| **Your active Outline sub-tab** | Whether you were in Explore or Outline                               |
| **Your chosen plan structure**  | Outline, freeform, narrative, or comparison                          |
| **Your canvas width**           | The text column width you set with the width slider                  |
| **Expanded card state**         | Which cards were expanded in the Outline view                        |

Index cards and the draft coexist inside the same document. Switching between Outline and Write does not move or separate them — they are two views of one document.

## The document list

The document list is the home screen of Dear, available at `/`. It shows all your saved documents sorted by when they were last updated, along with a relative timestamp for each.

From the document list you can:

* **Open a document** — click its title to go to `/write/:documentId`.
* **Create a document** — click **+ New** at the bottom of the list to open a blank document.
* **Search** — click the search icon in the top bar to filter documents by title.
* **Delete a document** — hover over a row, click the `···` menu, and select **Delete**. Deletion is permanent.

<Note>
  The document list shows a time-based greeting and your total human-written word count at the top of the page. Human-written words are words you typed yourself — AI-accepted completions do not count.
</Note>

## Creating a document

Click **+ New** on the document list. Dear creates a blank document with an "Untitled" heading and opens it immediately. The new document starts in Write mode with an empty canvas.

## Document titles

A document's title is derived from the first heading block in your Write draft. If the heading text is empty, the document appears as **Untitled** in the list.

The default starter document is titled "Start writing with Dear" and contains a short introduction. It is created automatically if you have no saved documents.

## Saving and sync

How a document is saved depends on whether your Dear account has cloud sync enabled.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Local only">
    Without cloud sync, Dear operates with a single local document. Your work is stored in the browser and persists across sessions on the same device, but it is not synced to the cloud and is not accessible from other devices or browsers.

    The document list shows the starter document as a local preview. There is no multi-document support in local-only mode.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Cloud sync">
    When you are signed in, Dear saves your documents to the cloud. All your documents are accessible from any device where you sign in.

    Documents are saved automatically as you write. The document list loads your full document list each time you open it.
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

<Tip>
  Sign in to enable cloud sync and access your documents across devices. Use the user menu in the top-right corner to sign in or sign up.
</Tip>

## Opening a document

Click any document title in the list. Dear navigates to `/write/:documentId` and restores the document exactly as you left it — including your last active mode, sub-tab, card list, and draft.

If you open the workspace directly at `/write` without a document ID (local-only mode), Dear loads the single local document.