Preview a document in Dropbox DocSend

Updated Dec 10, 2025

Overview

Using the Preview function allows you to examine all document uploads within DocSend prior to sharing with visitors. This not only helps ensure that your documents display as intended, but can also help you identify when small adjustments need to be made.

Note: Download-only content is not previewable; these files can only be viewed when downloaded.

Preview a Document

To preview your content from the document page, follow the steps below:

Select a document from the content library.
From the document page, click the preview icon (eye).
An internal document viewer will pop up. This will display what your document looks like to a visitor.

Preview the Visitor Experience

To test the visitor experience, simply copy your link and paste it into a new tab while logged into your DocSend account. This will open the document as experienced by your visitors.

Note: DocSend will recognize when you visit your own created links, and because DocSend recognizes you as the link creator, you will automatically bypass link security settings when previewing.

Track Internal Visits

In an effort to provide accurate visitor data, visits to your own links are tracked as “Internal Visits” by default.

When Internal Visits tracking is enabled, you’ll see internal visits are differentiated by the [Internal Visit]* tag under a document’s "Recent Activity" tab. When disabled, internal visits will not be tracked except for internal visits to signable documents, which are always tracked.

Note: Internal visits cannot be retroactively captured.

Configure Internal Visit Tracking

Account Owners and Admins can enable internal visit tracking by following the steps below:

Important: When disabled, internal visits to signable documents are still tracked. Internal visits to non-signable documents are not tracked.

Navigate to your Company Settings page.
Under "General," enable Track internal visits by clicking the checkbox.
Click Save Changes to update your settings.

Things to Consider

Visitors cannot bypass your link settings. Only the creator of the link can bypass the link settings when in preview mode.
Visitors will not see the preview button. You can test the full visitor experience by visiting the link from an incognito or private browsing window. However, this visit will not be recognized as an internal visit.
On Standard and Advanced plans, account Owners and Admins can see all preview visits of documents housed in Team Folders.
Internal Visits are not reflected on the DocSend Dashboard at this time. Internal visits associated with links you've created are only visible under the "Recent Activity" tab on your DocSend document page.
Internal Visits to signable documents are always tracked, even if internal visit tracking is disabled.
Visiting your own created link in an incognito/private browser or after you cleared cache and cookies will track your visits as a unique visit which will be included in your document stats. To maintain accurate visitor data for non-signable documents, we recommend only previewing documents in the document viewer when logged into your account.