Documentation

Setup takes about five minutes. The order matters — step 3 is the one people skip, and skipping it makes everything afterwards look broken.

What you need first: a Google account, and an AI agent you already pay for or use free — Claude or ChatGPT. ShareWatch is not an AI subscription and does not include one. It connects the agent you have to the documents you choose.

On this page

Setting up

  1. Sign in

    Go to app.sharewatch.ai and sign in with Google. Google is the only sign-in method — there is no password to create, and no separate ShareWatch account to remember.

    Signing in creates a personal workspace for you. You do not need a team, a company domain, or a paid plan to use ShareWatch.

  2. Connect Google Workspace

    From the dashboard, connect your Google Workspace. Google will ask you to approve two permissions:

    Permission What it actually allows
    drive.file Access to individual files you have selected — and nothing else. It cannot list, search, or open the rest of your Drive.
    drive.install Registers ShareWatch in Drive's "Open with" menu so you can share a file from Drive itself. It grants no access to any file on its own.

    Both are classed by Google as non-sensitive. ShareWatch deliberately does not request the broad Drive scope, which is the one that would let it read everything you own.

    Approve both. If you decline one, parts of the product stop working and the reason is not always obvious afterwards.

  3. Share at least one file

    This is the step that matters most, and the one people skip.

    On the Files page, use the file picker to choose the documents, sheets, or slide decks you want your agent to work with. This is Google's own picker, running in Google's page — ShareWatch never sees your Drive, only the files that come back from it.

    You can share more later, one at a time or several at once, and you can take any of them back.

  4. Connect your agent

    Your agent needs one address:

    https://sharewatch.ai/mcp

    In the app, the button beside that address copies it and opens your agent's connector settings in a new tab. Copy first, then paste — neither Claude nor ChatGPT accepts a pre-filled server address, so the address has to be on your clipboard before you get there.

    Name the connector ShareWatch, paste the address, and save. You will be sent back to sign in and approve the connection.

    • Claude — Add a custom connector. Connectors attach to your Claude account, not to one app, so adding it once makes the tools available in Claude on the web, in Claude Desktop, and in Claude Code. If you are not already signed in to claude.ai, you will get a login screen instead of the dialog — sign in, then use the link again.
    • ChatGPT — Create a connector. Custom connectors are available on ChatGPT's paid plans.

    Ask your agent to list your files. If it names the file you shared in step 3, you are done.

Why your file list starts empty

A new ShareWatch connection can see nothing. That is not a setup failure — it is the entire design.

Most integrations ask for access to your whole Drive and then promise to behave. ShareWatch asks Google for the drive.file scope instead, which means Google itself refuses to answer any request about a file you have not handed over. There is no prompt to jailbreak and no setting to misconfigure, because the boundary is not enforced by ShareWatch at all. It is enforced by Google, one layer below anything an agent can reach.

The practical consequence: until you share a file, every file tool correctly returns nothing. An agent that says it cannot find your document is usually telling the truth.

What your agent can do

Twenty-five tools, all scoped to the files you have shared. Broadly:

Reading List and search your shared files, read documents, inspect slide layouts, and generate slide previews as images.
Writing Create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations; update existing ones; turn Markdown into a properly formatted Google Doc; build slide decks from an outline using Google's own layouts.
Files and folders Upload files, convert Office and PDF files to Google formats, create folders, and move files between them.
Control Mark a file read-only, block a file entirely, or request access to a new one — which hands you back a link to pick it.

Every tool declares whether it only reads or whether it changes something. Your agent uses that declaration to decide when to ask you before acting, so anything that modifies or deletes prompts you first.

The audit log

Every call your agent makes is recorded: which file, which action, whether it succeeded, how long it took, and which agent made it. If you connect Claude and ChatGPT both, they appear in one log, distinguishable from each other.

You will find it in the dashboard. It is worth opening once early, because seeing your own request appear as a row is the fastest way to understand what ShareWatch actually is: not a feature bolted onto your agent, but a record of everything it did on your behalf.

File names in the log are stored encrypted. We cannot read them.

Taking access away

Three levels, from narrowest to broadest:

Block one file From the Files page, or by asking your agent to block it. Blocking is enforced by ShareWatch, so it holds even for a file Google would still allow through.
Disconnect one agent Revoke that connection's session from the dashboard. Other agents keep working.
Revoke everything Disconnect Google from the dashboard, or remove ShareWatch directly in your Google Account permissions. Access stops immediately.

When something goes wrong

My agent says it cannot find a file

Almost always because the file has not been shared. Share it from the Files page, or paste the Drive link into your conversation and ask the agent to request access — it will hand you a link that opens the picker with that file ready to select.

"Open with" in Drive does not work on Docs, Sheets, or Slides

This is a Google boundary, not a bug on our side. Drive's "Open with" menu grants access for files that are not Google-native — PDFs, Office documents, images. For a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slides file, Google opens our page without granting anything. ShareWatch detects this and offers you the picker instead, which does work. Use the picker for native Google files.

I connected Google, but my agent says I have not

Sign in to app.sharewatch.ai and check the dashboard. A Google connection can lapse — if you changed your Google password, revoked and re-granted access, or left it unused long enough, the stored authorization stops working. Reconnecting from the dashboard fixes it.

My work or school account will not connect

Managed Google Workspace domains can block third-party apps at the domain level, before you ever see a consent screen. If your organization does this, your Workspace administrator has to allow ShareWatch. A personal Google account is unaffected.

The connector dialog did not open

The links above only land on the dialog if you are already signed in to that agent's site. If you were not, you will end up on its home page instead — sign in, then use the link again. The address is https://sharewatch.ai/mcp either way, and adding a connector by hand works just as well.

We will never ask for your Google password, a one-time code, or an OAuth token — not by email, not in a support conversation. If someone claiming to be ShareWatch or Synapsium Labs does, please tell security@synapsiumlabs.io.

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