Generation History and Downloads

Every set of documents you generate is saved to your history for a limited time. This guide explains what you see on the Generation History page, how to download your documents in each format, and how retention and deletion work.

Accessing Your History

Open History from the main navigation. Each generation appears as a card showing:

• The job title and company (plus location, when known)
• A language chip (DE, EN, FR, or IT)
• A status badge: Processing (with a live spinner), Ready, or Failed. While a generation is still running but every document is already finished, the badge switches to Ready to download.
• A cloud sync indicator showing whether documents were uploaded to your connected cloud drive (see below)
• How long ago it was created, and an expiry countdown next to a small clock icon — for example "29d", "5h", or "Soon", turning red once Expired. Hover it to see the exact deletion date.

Click a card to expand it. The expanded view adds the writing tone, which CV was used, the source of the job (From job link, PDF upload, or Manual entry), the location, a clickable link to the original posting (for jobs added by link), and the full Created and Expires dates.

When sorted by date, entries are grouped into Today, Yesterday, This Week, and This Month sections. Long histories load in pages — click Load More at the bottom.

Searching, Filtering, and Sorting

The search bar ("Search by job title or company...") matches the job title and company name only — it does not search inside document content.

On desktop, five filter dropdowns sit below the search bar:

• Status: All, Completed, Processing, Failed — each with a live count
• Date: All Time, Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days, Last 3 Months
• Source: All sources, From job link, PDF upload, Manual entry
• Language and Tone: populated from the languages and tones actually present in your history

A Clear Filters button resets everything, and a "Showing X of Y" counter appears while filters are active. The Sort by dropdown offers Newest, Oldest, A-Z Job Title, and A-Z Company.

On phones and small screens, a single Filter button (with a badge counting active filters) opens a drawer containing the same controls.

Downloading Individual Documents

Each card has a Download button that opens a menu (a bottom sheet on mobile). Inside, every document type is listed with colored format bubbles:

• Motivational Letter, Application Email, Interview Q&A, Job Summary — available as PDF (red), DOCX (blue), and TXT (grey)
• Job Posting — the archived copy of the original posting, PDF only
• Application Email — also available as EML (a ready-to-send email draft — see below)

Click a filled bubble to download that file. Bubble states tell you what's going on:

• Filled — ready; click to download
• Spinner — that file is still being generated; it becomes clickable the moment it's ready, even while the rest of the generation is still running
• Disabled grey — the file expired or could not be produced

What you can download — on every account, free included: all five documents as clean PDFs, plus editable Word (.docx) and text (.txt) versions of every document, and the Application Email additionally as a ready-to-send email draft (.eml).

The EML bubble on the Application Email — besides PDF, DOCX, and TXT, the Application Email offers an EML download: a ready-to-send email draft file. Download it and double-click the file — it opens in your default mail program (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird...) as a draft with the subject line filled in and the generated documents from that run already attached; when the job posting included a contact email address, the recipient is pre-filled too. Review the draft, adjust whatever you like, and send it from your own mailbox — preparAItor never sends email on your behalf. Note that generations created before this feature existed don't include a draft, so older entries show no EML bubble.

Downloads never cost credits. There is a short rate limit against rapid-fire requests — if you click too quickly you'll see "Too many download requests. Please wait a moment and try again."

Download All (ZIP)

Download All (ZIP) is the top item inside the same download menu — not a separate button. Notes:

• It appears only once the generation is Ready. During processing, only the individual format bubbles are shown.
• Like the individual downloads, it's included for free on every account.
• A summary line under it ("X documents, Y files") shows what the ZIP will contain, and hovering it lists the exact formats. The small gear icon next to it jumps to the settings.

You choose which document types and formats go into the ZIP under Settings → Preferences, in the Bulk Download / ZIP File section: tick or untick each format per document type under Document Formats. Unchecked formats are still generated — they're just left out of the ZIP. At least one format must stay selected per document type for it to appear.

The ZIP file is named with the download date, company, and job title (special characters become underscores, long names are truncated). Inside, all files sit at the root with no subfolders, and each filename encodes the date, company, job title, and the document name in the generation's output language — for example "Application_Letter" in English or "Bewerbungsschreiben" in German — so files sort cleanly in any file manager. Preparing the ZIP usually takes 5–15 seconds.

Cloud Sync

With a drive connected, finished documents are automatically uploaded to your Google Drive or OneDrive — cloud sync is included for free on every account. The cloud icon on each card shows the state: Syncing, Synced with a file count, or Failed, with tooltips explaining any "not synced" state — disabled in your settings, or no cloud drive connected yet. Connect and manage drives under Settings → Cloud Drives. See Cloud Storage Setup.

Adding a Generation to the Tracker

Completed generations show an Add to Tracker button in the card's action row. One click creates an entry in the Application Tracker; the icon then changes to In Tracker. This matters because history is short-lived (30 days at most) while tracker entries persist for 365 days — it's the right place for status, follow-ups, and outcomes. Tracker capacity is 300 applications on every account. See Application Tracker.

Document Retention

Generation history is intentionally short-lived. Documents are automatically deleted after your configured retention period:

• Available periods: 1 day, 7 days, or 30 days (the default and the maximum)
• Configure in: Settings → Preferences, under Data Retention Period
• The period is applied when a generation is created — changing the setting affects new generations only; existing entries keep the expiry they were born with
• After expiry, files can no longer be downloaded and the entry is permanently deleted — there is no recovery
• Email reminder: you get a warning email 7 days before entries expire. Users on the 1-day or 7-day setting have opted into ephemeral storage and receive no reminder.

Download important documents before they expire, or rely on cloud sync for automatic backup. For a long-term record of the application itself, use Add to Tracker.

Deleting Generations

To delete a single generation, open the 3-dot menu on its card and choose Delete. A confirmation dialog (Delete Generation?) spells out what goes: all generated documents, metadata, and the job listing details for that generation — your CV and the original job entry are not affected. Confirm with Delete Permanently.

To delete several at once, click the checklist icon (Select multiple) in the page header. Cards get checkboxes, and a bar appears with Select all, the selected count, and Delete selected. Confirm in the dialog to remove them all.

Things to know:

• Deletion is immediate and irreversible.
• Deleting a generation does not refund the credits it cost — delete is housekeeping, not cancellation.
• You can't delete a generation while it's processing — the menu item is disabled with the hint "Generation in progress — delete available once complete". Processing cards are also excluded from multi-select.
• Files already synced to your Google Drive or OneDrive are not touched — remove those from your drive yourself if you want them gone.

Always Available

The editable formats and Download All are included on every account, for every history entry — regardless of your credit balance. Files you already downloaded or synced to your own cloud drive are yours in any case.

Tips

• Download important documents locally as soon as they're ready
• Use the Source filter to find everything you generated from one intake method — for example all PDF-upload jobs
• Keep retention at 30 days during an active search so the pre-expiry reminder email can reach you; switch to 1 day or 7 days for privacy once you're done
• Pair history with the tracker: history holds the files (up to 30 days), the tracker holds the record (365 days)

Next Steps

• Interview Preparation — Make the most of your Interview Q&A document
• Cloud Storage Setup — Auto-sync documents to Google Drive or OneDrive
• Application Tracker — Long-term records for every application