DocShield is a software program for Microsoft Windows operating systems that is designed to prevent or remedy the catastrophic loss or accidental modification of important electronic documents. It protects these documents by continually monitoring them for changes, then creating and storing snapshots of those documents as they change through time. DocShield's operation can be described as "passive" because it will never delete nor modify your shielded documents. "Snapshots" are stored in a compressed archive, which DocShield can be configured to keep in more than one location for added protection. Versions of the document throughout its history are accessible to view or restore.

The archive of shielded files may exist on a local disk, a network disk, or other storage devices. For DocShield to begin shielding documents from disaster, you must first select one or more "destination" folders, which will hold the DocShield archives. If your resources allow, it is suggested that you create at least two destination folders on different physical devices to protect against hardware failure. You then select the documents that you want to shield. When a new "snapshot" of a document is written to an archive, it will automatically be written to the archive in each of the destination folders.