Check the NetDocuments Server Status
If you’re experiencing issues and aren’t sure whether the problem is on your end or NetDocuments’, check the NetDocuments US status page at trust-us.netdocuments.com. It shows real-time status for all major components of the platform, including the core service, search, indexing, and API integrations, along with a history of past incidents.
You can also subscribe to receive proactive notifications by email, text, or Slack whenever NetDocuments declares, updates, or resolves an incident — so you’re not left wondering what’s happening. Look for the Subscribe to Updates button at the top of the page.
How to Use Your ndOffice Echo Folder — Including During a NetDocuments Outage
If NetDocuments experiences an outage or disruption, you don’t have to stop working. The ndOffice Echo folder is a local copy of your recent documents stored directly on your computer, and it can serve as your lifeline when the cloud is temporarily unavailable.
When Optiable sets up NetDocuments for a law firm, we configure the Echo folder to retain the last 14 days of documents. That means you have a two-week local window of your most recently accessed files available at all times.
Here’s how the Echo folder works — and what to do during an outage.
What Is the Echo Folder?
The Echo folder is a local cache maintained by ndOffice, the desktop integration component for NetDocuments. Every time you open a document through ndOffice, a local copy is stored in your Echo folder. This serves two purposes:
- Disaster recovery — If NetDocuments is temporarily unavailable, you may be able to continue working on documents without interruption, depending on how the outage occurs.
- Document recovery — If a file didn’t save properly, or you need to retrieve an attachment or comparison copy, the Echo folder is where to look.
Inside the Echo folder, you’ll find the following subfolders:
- Backup — Copies of documents that failed to upload or save properly. This is separate from your regularly cached working documents.
- Attachments — Copies of documents you’ve attached to emails.
- Comparisons — Versions of documents used for document comparison.
Your working documents — the ones you’ve opened through ndOffice in the past 14 days — are cached directly in the Echo folder itself, not in any subfolder.
What Happens During a NetDocuments Outage
How you should respond during an outage depends on whether ndOffice detects the disruption automatically or whether you need to recover files manually.
Scenario 1: ndOffice Goes Offline Automatically (Best Case)
If ndOffice detects that it has lost its connection to NetDocuments, it will switch into offline mode on its own. In this case, you don’t need to do anything special — just keep working on whatever document you have open. ndOffice continues to save your changes locally, and when the connection is restored, it will automatically upload your edits back to NetDocuments as a new version.
This is the smoothest outage scenario, and it requires no action on your part beyond continuing to work normally.
Scenario 2: Manual Recovery from the Echo Folder
If ndOffice is not running, if the outage prevents you from opening documents through ndOffice in the first place, or if you need to retrieve a specific file after the fact, you can navigate to the Echo folder directly in File Explorer and open files from there. However, in this scenario, ndOffice is not managing those edits — so your changes will not automatically sync back to NetDocuments when connectivity is restored.
If you edit a file this way, you’ll need to manually upload it back to NetDocuments once it’s available again. You can do this by dragging and dropping the file into the ndOffice Activity Center, or by right-clicking the file in File Explorer and selecting Save to NetDocuments.
How to Find Your Echo Folder
Step 1: Open Your System Tray
Go to the bottom-right corner of your screen and click the up arrow (^) to show hidden icons if needed. Look for the dark blue ndOffice icon with the white “nd” logo.
Step 2: Open the Echo Folder
Click the gear icon in the bottom-left corner of the Activity window, then select View Echo Folder. This will open the folder directly in File Explorer.
The default Echo folder path is:
C:\Users\[your-username]\ND Office Echo\SERVICE-[your-username]
For example: C:\Users\rduncan\ND Office Echo\SERVICE-rduncan
Optional: Change the Echo Folder Location
If you need to move the Echo folder to a different drive or location, you can update the path in the Windows Registry:
- Click Start, type regedit, and press Enter.
- If a User Account Control prompt appears, click Yes.
- Navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\NetVoyage\NetDocuments - Right-click EchoingFolderPath and select Modify.
- Enter the new folder path in the Value data field.
- Click OK and restart ndOffice.
Optional: Adjust the Retention Period
The Echo folder retention period controls how long local copies are kept before being automatically deleted. Optiable configures this to 14 days as a standard, which gives your firm a two-week window for disaster recovery. This setting can be adjusted in ndOffice settings or managed through Group Policy for your organization.