The office Messenger: install, pair, and watched files
what the Messenger is, how to install it on an office computer without admin rights, and how to tell it which files to watch.
The Messenger is a small, windowless program that stays running on a computer in your office to automatically upload the files you tell it to, straight to Fold. It doesn't decide anything on its own: it only does what the Fold web app asks it to.
Installing it
- Download the Messenger installer from Fold's side panel ("Download installer") or from your Account settings.
- Run it on the office computer that will stay powered on (if it's turned off, nothing gets uploaded that day). You don't need admin rights on the machine.
- During installation you'll be asked for your Fold URL, a pairing code, and the path to the shared folder where your files live.
Pairing it
From Fold you generate a single-use pairing code, valid for 24 hours ("Generate code," in the side panel). You enter it in the Messenger installer, and it gets paired to your company through a machine token — not a personal account — which is never shown on screen again and never ends up in any visible log.
Which files it watches
You tell Fold, either in chat or from Account › My data, which file you want it to watch (for example, "upload the pricing spreadsheet every time it changes"). Fold asks before it starts watching a new file. From there, the Messenger:
- Checks the file at the path you gave it, inside your shared folder.
- If it changes (by date, size, or its fingerprint if it was moved) and stops changing, it uploads a copy.
- It only ever reads the original: never moves, edits, or deletes it.
- It can only upload spreadsheet files that sit inside the folder you configured: even if something went wrong on the server side, the Messenger can't be made to upload anything else from that computer.
You can ask it to stop watching a file at any time ("stop uploading the stock file"); it asks for confirmation before doing that too.
If the connection drops
If the computer loses its connection, the Messenger queues whatever it had pending and retries once the connection is back, even after a restart. If a specific file gets rejected (for example, for being too large), it doesn't keep retrying with the same bytes — it waits until the file changes.
What you see in Fold
The side panel shows the Messenger's status: whether it's connected, how many files it's watching, when each one was last uploaded, and whether anything errored.
Uninstalling it
There's an uninstaller that removes the Messenger and its auto-start. By default it keeps its configuration and state in case you reinstall later; you can ask for those to be removed too.