Patent 10536513 was granted and assigned to Google on January, 2020 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Systems and methods are disclosed herein for opening files via local applications. A first application on a local device receives a request to open a document specified by a user via a user interface associated with the first application, the document having a document identifier and associated with a first file stored on a server, the request comprising the document identifier and a user identifier. The first application forwards the request to open the document associated with the first file to a second application on the local device, and receives, from the second application, a list comprising one or more document processing applications that are on the local device and are capable of opening a second file that is stored on the local device and has the same document identifier as the document specified by the user, the second file being a local copy of the first file. The first application selects one of the document processing applications from the list, and causes a selected processing application to open the second file.