About

Built out of a small, everyday frustration

Sunset Docs is not a startup chasing growth. It is a tool I wanted to exist, and it is open source so anyone can use it, check how it works or run it themselves.

Where it started

I don't have a printer at home. Whenever I needed to print a contract, a copy of my ID or a form, the copy shop asked me to email it to them. The file then stayed in their inbox, next to hundreds of other people's documents, with no date to disappear.

It always felt wrong. Not because anyone at the counter was doing something bad, but because the default tool, email, keeps everything forever and spreads copies everywhere.

Sunset Docs is what I wanted to find at that counter: a link or a QR code to send the file, a preview the shop can print from, and a deletion date set from the start. The same problem shows up at accountants, agencies, landlords and anyone who asks for sensitive documents, so the tool is built for all of them.

Esteve Castells, creator of Sunset Docs

What guides it

Why the hosted version has paid plans

Running sunsetdocs.com costs money: servers, encrypted storage, email delivery and malware scanning. The plans exist to cover those costs and keep the service maintained, not to build a business on top of your documents.

Open source, AGPL-3.0

The full source code is public. You can read how documents are encrypted, previewed and deleted, report problems and suggest improvements. If someone offers a modified version as an online service, the AGPL requires them to publish their changes too.

View the code on GitHub

Install it yourself

If you prefer to keep everything on your own server, you can. Self-hosted mode switches off billing and the public website and keeps the document inbox: upload links, watermarked previews, audited printing and automatic deletion.

Read the installation guide