Showing documents online
With the online view, your customer can also open a quote, an invoice or a self-billing invoice in the browser, without an account and without an app. You see on which day they opened it online. The PDF is attached to the email as always: the invoice is the attachment, the online view is an extra.
What the online view is
When you send a document by email, Folnaro can add a sentence with a link, such as “You can also view the document online” with a link like https://. Behind the link is an encrypted copy of the document you are sending.
- The attachment stays: the PDF and, if your customer gets one, the XRechnung are still attached to the email. The attachment is what you send. The online view only comes on top.
- Exactly the same file: online is the PDF Folnaro archived when you finalized, byte for byte. Folnaro checks it against its checksum before uploading and never renders it again.
- For these documents: quotes, order confirmations, invoices, partial and final invoices, invoice corrections, cancellation invoices and self-billing invoices you send. Delivery notes have no online view. Self-billing invoices you receive don’t either, because you don’t send them.
- Size: the PDF can be up to 4 MB, all files of a document together up to 6 MB. Folnaro PDFs are much smaller. If a document is larger after all, the email goes without the online view. The send sheet tells you why.
Include the online view
- Open the send sheet as usual with Document > Send… (⇧⌘M).
- Tick Include Online View. A sentence below it then explains that your customer can view the document in the browser and you see on which day they opened it.
- The first time, Folnaro shows the data processing agreement for the online view, because the service stores your customers’ documents on your behalf, encrypted and without being able to read them. Read it and accept it.
- The text now contains a sentence with the placeholder
{OnlineLink}. Folnaro fills in the link only when sending. - Click Send.
Folnaro remembers your choice for each customer. Once you have accepted the agreement, the checkbox is ticked the first time, and after that as you last chose for this customer. If you send a document again, Folnaro uses the same link as long as it is still live. If it has ended, the document gets a new one.
The email never waits more than 10 seconds for the upload. If it fails, for example because your Mac is offline, the email goes without the sentence with the link, with the PDF as always. The send log in the inspector names the reason. With Send Online View Later you create the link afterwards and send it with a short follow-up email. If you send through Apple Mail, Folnaro creates the link before the email appears in Mail.
Where the sentence goes in your own texts is set in the email templates, see Send the online view along.
What your customer sees
At the top your customer sees your name with logo or monogram. Below it is the document with number, date, amount and due date, for a quote the date it is valid until. With one click they download the PDF and, if there is one, the e-invoice as XML.
For an unpaid invoice, a card shows how to pay: recipient, IBAN, reference and amount, a GiroCode for their banking app and the payment link if the document has one. These are the same details as on the PDF. Below that is the PDF itself, easy to read on a phone too.
At the bottom the page asks your customer to save the PDF for their records. It also tells them that you only see the day they first and last opened the page. The page addresses your customer the way you set it in the customer, formally by default. It appears in German or English.
View as Customer opens the page in your browser so you see what your customer sees. This preview never counts as opened.
What “opened online” means
In the inspector of a document, the Sent section shows on which day your customer opened the page: First opened and Last opened, or Not opened yet. In the list, the status reads for example “Sent · Opened online 12.10.”.
Only a person really looking counts as opened. The page reports only once the first page of the PDF shows, the tab is visible and your customer clicked, scrolled or typed, or the page was visible for 8 seconds. Automated browsers don’t count, and neither does your own preview. Nothing counts in the first 30 seconds after the upload, because that is when security services often check the email.
You only see the day, in German time: no time of day, no count, no address. What that means for you:
- Opened online means someone had the page open. Whether they checked the document, Folnaro can’t know.
- Rarely, a company’s security service opens a link so thoroughly that it still counts as opened.
- If your customer forwards the email, for example to their accounts team, a colleague opening it counts too.
- Not opened yet does not mean the email didn’t arrive. Many people simply open the attachment.
When your customer opens a document for the first time, Folnaro sends you a notification, such as “Kranich Yoga opened RE-2026-0142”. A click opens the document. You turn this off with Notify When a Customer Opens a Document, see General.
Folnaro asks the service as long as an online view has not been opened yet: every 30 minutes for the first 48 hours after sending, then every 4 hours, and also at launch and when your Mac wakes. A new day under Last opened can therefore show up a little later.
How long a document stays online
The copy online is not an archive. Your original stays in Folnaro for as long as the retention period runs. Your customer has the attachment. So a document stays online only as long as it helps:
| Document | Online until | At most |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice, partial and final invoice | 14 days after payment or write-off. A reminder by email keeps it online until 30 days after the reminder. | 180 days after sending, 365 days with reminders |
| Quote, order confirmation | 30 days after the date the quote is valid until, or after it was accepted or declined. Without that date, 90 days after sending. | 180 days |
| Invoice correction, cancellation invoice, self-billing invoice | 60 days after sending | 60 days |
If you cancel an invoice, its online view ends at once. For 30 days after that the page only shows your name and the document’s title with a note that it is no longer online. Then the service deletes everything. The end comes even if your Mac is off or you no longer use Folnaro, because the service ends the link on its own when it expires.
Manage the online view
In the inspector of a sent document, the Sent section shows for example “Online until 14.04.2027” in the Online View row. The menu with the three dots offers:
- Copy Link puts the link on the clipboard, for a message for example.
- View as Customer opens the page in your browser. It never counts as opened.
- Extend by 30 Days moves the end further out.
- End Online View ends it at once. For 30 days the page then only shows that the document is no longer online. If you also delete the copy, everything is gone at once.
If an email went out without the online view because the upload failed, the section shows a note with the reason and Send Online View Later.
When you delete a customer’s personal data, Folnaro ends all their online views. The online view is part of sending your documents: after the trial you still send finalized documents with it. You keep seeing the days they were opened, and ending always works.
How secure this is
- End-to-end encrypted: Folnaro encrypts the document, your name and the payment details on your Mac (AES-256-GCM). The key is in the link after the # sign. A browser never sends that part to a server. The service at
dokument.folnaro.appcan’t read the document. - What the service stores: the encrypted files, their checksums and sizes, dates such as the end of the online view, the two days of first and last opening, an identifier of your channel, through which Folnaro learns about openings, and a check value of your installation against abuse.
- No tracking: Folnaro puts no tracking pixel in the email, and the email loads nothing from the web. The page sets no cookies and loads nothing from third parties. The service stores no IP address. To slow down abuse, it turns the address into a value that changes every day and can’t be turned back.
- In the EU and only for a while: the service runs on Cloudflare, and the data stays in the EU. When an online view ends, only your name and the title remain for 30 days, then everything is deleted.
- The keys stay with you: Folnaro keeps the link and the key for ending it in the Keychain, not in the database.
Good to know: the link works for anyone who has it, without a password. That is on purpose, because the same PDF is attached to the email anyway. If your customer forwards the email, someone else can see the document. It is decrypted in your customer’s browser, by the page the service delivers. So you trust Folnaro not to change that code in a way that reads the document.
With several Macs
The opened days reach all your Macs through iCloud, and you get the notification only once. Folnaro keeps the key to a link in the Keychain of the Mac you sent the document from. With iCloud Keychain it reaches your other Macs too. Without it you see the days there but can’t copy or end the link. For that, open Folnaro on the Mac that created the link.
Agents and the online view
Through MCP, agents see with documents_online_view_status which sent documents were opened online and on which day. With the Sending permission under Settings… > Agents they end or extend an online view. An agent gets the link itself only if you turn on Agents May Pass On Links. The same rule holds for agents: not opened yet does not mean the email didn’t arrive. See Connecting agents through MCP.
Common problems
- Folnaro shows “opened online”, but my customer says they got nothing.
- Perhaps their company’s security service opened the link, or a colleague opened the forwarded email. Ask where the email goes on their side and, if needed, send the document again with Send Again….
- It has said “Not opened yet” for days.
- Your customer may have opened only the attachment, which Folnaro can’t see. If the invoice is overdue, Folnaro suggests sending it again before you remind, see Reminders and the online view.
- The email went out without the online view.
- The upload did not finish within 10 seconds, the service was busy or the document was too large. The Sent section in the inspector names the reason. Check your internet connection and click Send Online View Later there.
- Copy Link and End are missing on this Mac.
- The key to the link is on the Mac you sent the document from and reaches other Macs only with iCloud Keychain. Open Folnaro there. You see the opened days here too.