Categories

Categories are your main filing system. Use them for big buckets like "Utilities" or "Insurance". Paperarchive can suggest categories, and you can always override them.

Use categories for stable structure, and tags for flexible labels.

Create a category

  1. Go to Categories.
  2. Click New category.
  3. Name it and save.

You will see the document count next to each category.

Duplicate hint

Before a new category is created or renamed, Paperarchive checks your existing categories for the same or a similar name: other spellings ("&" or "and"), singular and plural ("Insurance" and "Insurances"), words that mean the same ("Car" and "Vehicle") and names that contain each other ("Electricity" and "Electricity bills"). If it finds one, you choose:

  • Use existing: the document goes into the category you already have.
  • Create as tag instead: useful when the name describes a topic across categories.
  • Create anyway: when you really want a separate category.

Category suggestions

Paperarchive does not create categories on its own. When a document fits none of your categories, it stays in "Uncategorized" and is marked as uncertain, and the category the AI would suggest lands in Category suggestions (the sparkle icon on the Categories page, with the number of open suggestions). The same suggestion for several documents is collected into one entry.

  • Create category: the category is created and the documents of the suggestion move there, unless you already sorted them yourself.
  • Assign to existing: the documents move to a category you pick, and later documents with the same suggestion follow.
  • Dismiss: the suggestion disappears and does not come back.

Categories that came from a suggestion show a small sparkle icon.

Subcategories (one level)

You can add subcategories under a top level category. Nested levels deeper than one are not supported. This keeps navigation fast and clean.

Edit and organize

  • Rename: change the label.
  • Move: move a category under another (when allowed).
  • Merge: combine multiple categories into one.

Note: categories with children may have move restrictions.

Merge and undo

Select two or more categories, choose Merge and pick the category that stays. Paperarchive moves everything to it: the documents (also those in the trash), the subcategories, what it learned about which sender goes into which category, and your rules. A subcategory with the same name as one of the remaining category's is merged into that one. Renaming a category to the name of an existing one offers the same merge.

The old name keeps working: new documents that would have gone into it land in the category that stays, and the old name does not come back as a category suggestion.

Right after merging, the message at the bottom offers Undo. Later on, open Merges (the clock icon on the Categories page): it lists your merges, each with its own undo. Undo brings the merged categories back and puts everything where it was before. Whatever you changed yourself after the merge stays as it is, and Paperarchive tells you how many entries that concerns.

  • Paperarchive never merges on its own. Only you decide that.
  • Documents archived in a GoBD space keep their category, so a category with such documents can only be the one that stays.
  • "Uncategorized" cannot be merged into another category, but other categories can be merged into it.

Trash and restore

Deleted categories go to Trash for 30 days. You can restore or delete permanently.