### Step 1 โ Open Local FS in PipesHub
1. In the main app, open your **user profile** menu at the bottom of the left sidebar, then choose **Workspace Settings**.
2. In the workspace settings sidebar, under **Personal**, click **Your Connectors**.
3. Find the **Local FS** card.
4. Click **+ Setup** on the card.
A panel slides in from the right with two tabs: **Authenticate Instance** and **Configure Records**. You'll fill them in order.
Local FS is a **personal** connector โ set it up from **Workspace Settings โ Your Connectors**, not **Workspace Settings โ Connectors** (team scope). Open Workspace Settings from the profile menu at the bottom of the main sidebar; do not use the **Personal** section of the main app sidebar (that area is for actions like toolsets, not connector setup).
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### Step 2 โ Name the instance (Authenticate Instance tab)
The first tab is **Authenticate Instance**. Local FS has no login, so you'll see a banner that says **No authentication required for this connector.** That's normal โ there's nothing to paste.
1. In **Instance name**, type a short name you'll recognise later (for example `My laptop` or `Work notes`).
2. Click **Next โ** at the bottom.
The instance name is just a label for you. Pick something descriptive โ when you add a second folder later, this is how you'll tell them apart.
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### Step 3 โ Pick the folder and how often to sync (Configure Records tab)
The panel moves you to the **Configure Records** tab. This is the only tab where you actually have to make choices.
Under **Sync settings** there are two choices:
* **Sync Strategy**
* **Scheduled** โ PipesHub rescans the folder on its own. (Recommended.)
* **Manual** โ only rescans when you press **Sync** / **Full sync** yourself.
* **Sync Interval** โ how often a scheduled sync runs. **1 Hour** is a good starting point.
Under **Additional settings**:
* **Local folder** โ the **path to the folder** you want to index. Use **Choose folder** if a picker is shown, or type the path directly. Make sure it's a path the **PipesHub connector** can see (see "Which computer?" above).
* **Include subfolders** โ leave this on to index everything inside the folder. Turn it off to index only the files at the top level.
* **Batch size** โ leave it as the default unless someone has told you otherwise.
Not sure what to pick? **Scheduled**, **1 Hour**, **Include subfolders ON**, batch size as-is โ that's the right answer for most people.
Just turning the connector "on" later won't read your files by itself. PipesHub still needs either a **manual sync** or a **schedule** to actually walk the folder. Step 6 covers running a sync.
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### Step 4 โ (Optional) Narrow down what gets synced
If your folder has lots of files you don't care about (build outputs, photos, downloads), you can tell PipesHub to skip them.
Scroll to **Indexing & sync filters** and click **+ Add filter**.
Common filters:
| Filter | What it does | When to use it |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| **File Extensions** | Only sync certain file types. Comma-separated, e.g. `pdf, docx, txt`. | You only want documents โ not images, videos, archives. |
| **Modified Date** | Only sync files changed after / before / between certain dates. | You want to skip very old files. |
| **Created Date** | Same idea as Modified Date but for the original creation time. | Same idea, different timestamp. |
Each filter has an operator โ usually **In** ("only these") or **Not In** ("everything except these").
Quick examples:
* **PDFs only** โ *File Extensions* ยท *In* ยท `pdf`
* **Skip images and archives** โ *File Extensions* ยท *Not In* ยท `jpg, png, gif, zip`
* **Last year only** โ *Modified Date* ยท *After* ยท pick a date
When you're done, click **Save Configuration** at the bottom of the panel.
No filters? That's fine for small folders. PipesHub will just sync everything it can read.
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### Step 5 โ Turn sync on
After you save, you'll land on the **Local FS** instance page with one row โ your new instance.
Right now the row shows **Sync Paused** โ nothing is happening yet.
1. Find the **Sync Enabled** toggle on the right of the row.
2. Click it on.
The status flips to **Sync Enabled** and PipesHub is ready to scan your folder.
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### Step 6 โ Run the first sync and watch progress
Click anywhere on the instance row to open the **Overview** panel on the right.
If you picked **Manual** sync strategy in Step 3, click **Sync** or **Full sync** here to kick off the first crawl. If you picked **Scheduled**, the next sync will run at the interval you set (or click **Sync** if you don't want to wait).
In the panel you can see:
* **Total** โ how many files PipesHub has found.
* **Completed** โ files that are fully indexed and searchable.
* **Processing** โ files being read right now.
* **Queued** / **Not Started** โ files waiting their turn.
* **Failed** โ files PipesHub couldn't read (usually a permission issue, or a corrupt/protected file).
* **Sync** / **Full sync** โ re-run a sync any time. **Full sync** rescans everything; **Sync** picks up only what's changed.
* **Manage Configuration** โ re-opens the two tabs from Steps 2โ4 if you want to change the folder or filters later.
That's it! ๐ Once **Processing** and **Queued** drop to zero, your folder is fully searchable in PipesHub.
