Download and verify signed documents
When the last person signs, SignSwifly seals the envelope. This guide says what you get, where to download it, how anyone can check that a copy is genuine, and what Adobe Acrobat Reader shows about the seal today.
What you get
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
| Each signed document | The document with everyone’s signatures and entries on it, sealed with a PAdES digital seal and a timestamp from DigiCert, an independent timestamp authority. Any change to the file after sealing shows: the verify page no longer finds it. |
| Certificate of completion | The evidence of how it was signed, sealed the same way: who was asked, how and when each person agreed to sign electronically and signed, their browser and device, each document’s SHA-256 fingerprint before and after sealing, any files signers attached, and the audit trail up to completion: the time of each step, who took it, by email address (or mobile), and the IP address where one was recorded. It lists every document on the envelope, and who was given which, even in the copy for someone given only some of them. Later steps, such as downloads, are on the envelope’s Audit log. |
| Combined PDF | Every signed document in order, with the certificate as its last pages, in one PDF sealed as a document of its own. Only when the sender ticked it before sending the envelope, and only for people given every document. |
Each page of the signed documents and the certificate carries a SignSwifly ID in small grey type in its top-left corner, such as SignSwifly ID: AU-2ad84da3-…. It leads back to the envelope, so anyone holding a single page can quote it to the sender or to us. Documents sealed before late September 2026 don’t have it.
Files signers attach
A file a signer attaches to a File upload field is kept with the envelope:
- If the field has Append to PDF ticked, a PDF or a picture (PNG or JPEG) goes in as pages at the end of the signed document.
- Every attached file can be downloaded from the envelope’s row under Send & Sign, under Attached by signers, just as the signer attached it, while the envelope’s documents are available. Each download is recorded in the envelope’s Audit log. The certificate of completion lists each one, with who attached it.
- Exports and SharePoint don’t include them, so download any you need to keep.
Download them
As the sender, or anyone in the workspace
- Open Send & Sign and choose Completed. If you archived it, look under Archived.
- Open the envelope’s row.
- Choose a document’s name to download its signed copy, Certificate for the certificate of completion, or Download all as one PDF for the combined PDF, when there is one.
The same row has the envelope’s Audit log, which lists every step on screen.
If you sent the envelope to yourself and signed it too, you get one completion email. It has your Download the signed documents link, which needs no sign-in, and Open SignSwifly.
As a signer or viewer
The link in their email becomes their download page once everyone has signed. It lists only the documents they were given, with the certificate of completion. If the envelope sends them the completion email, it has a Download the signed documents button too. Someone who signed in person on your device has no link: they may be emailed at completion, and otherwise you send them a copy. The signer’s guide walks them through it.
Getting a combined PDF
On Solo and up, tick Create combined document on completion under Extra settings while you prepare the envelope. To have one for every new envelope, the owner or an admin ticks it under Settings → Session Settings. It’s made when the envelope completes. The choice is fixed once you send, so it can’t be added to an envelope that’s already out or finished. It’s only offered to people given every document.
Other ways to get your files
- On Team and up, the completion email can carry the signed files themselves: tick Attach the signed files to completion emails. Each person’s email carries only the documents they were given, with the certificate. Someone given every document gets just the combined PDF, when the envelope has one. If an email’s files come to more than 7 MB, or one can’t be attached, the email says so and links to them instead.
- On Team and up, the owner or an admin can export the envelopes created between two dates, under Settings → Data & Retention. You get one or more ZIP files holding a CSV of the envelopes and the sealed documents and certificates of those that completed. See what an export holds.
- On Solo and up, the API can download sealed documents, combined PDFs and certificates: see the API and webhooks.
- On Scale, every completed envelope can be saved to a SharePoint site of yours: see Connecting Microsoft 365.
How long they stay available
On Solo, Team and Scale, documents stay available for as long as your workspace exists, unless a Scale workspace sets a retention policy. On the Free plan, the documents of an envelope sent on Free stay available for 6 months after it finishes, and its row says until when. Signers’ links stop handing them out on the same day, and their completion email and download page tell them the date. After that the row reads Documents locked. Nothing is deleted: upgrade to Solo or above and they’re available again. Envelopes you sent while on a paid plan stay available on Free. Under a retention policy, the row says until when the policy keeps them, then reads Documents locked, or Documents deleted once the policy has deleted them. Either way, save a copy of anything you need to keep.
Check a copy is genuine
Anyone holding a signed document, a certificate of completion or a combined PDF can check it is exactly the file SignSwifly sealed, so nothing in it has changed since.
- Open signswifly.com.au/verify.
- Choose the PDF, or drop it on the box.
- Your browser works out the file’s SHA-256 fingerprint, and only that is sent to SignSwifly to look up. The file itself never leaves your device.
- Genuine means it is a SignSwifly original, unchanged since it was sealed. The answer says which file of which envelope it is, by its SignSwifly ID, and when it was sealed.
- Not found means SignSwifly never sealed this exact file. A copy that has been edited, re-saved, printed to PDF, compressed or signed again in another program has a different fingerprint, even if it looks the same. Ask the sender for the original download.
So keep the files exactly as you downloaded them. To send a copy on, send the file itself.
What Adobe shows today
Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is free, checks a PDF’s seal. Not every PDF viewer does: a browser’s built-in viewer usually shows the pages only.
Today SignSwifly seals documents with its own, self-issued certificate, which Adobe doesn’t yet trust. So Adobe may warn that the signature has problems, and say the signer’s identity is unknown, because it can’t name who sealed it.
That warning is about who sealed the file, not about what’s in it. To check the document hasn’t been modified since it was sealed, use the verify page: it confirms whether a file is an unchanged SignSwifly original.
A certificate on Adobe’s Approved Trust List, so Adobe shows the seal as trusted, is Coming soon
More about the seal is on Digital signatures.