Reference

Saving and sync

What the status icon in the header means, where your work is kept, and what happens when the connection drops.

Every change is saved on this device first, then sent to the server. The status icon in the drawing's header tells you where it is; hover or click it for details.

The icon stays quiet while it saves or reconnects, and its details never open by themselves.

When the icon turns red

Red means something needs you: this device could not save a change, you are offline with changes the server does not have yet, or your changes have waited about 15 seconds while the server cannot be reached or refuses them. The details say why. It stays red until the problem clears.

Writing with a pen

Handwriting is saved a moment after you pause, a word at a time, so nothing gets between one stroke and the next. While strokes are waiting the status reads Saving on this device…, never Synced. They are saved at once when you press anything outside the drawing, press a key, undo, or leave the tab.

Closing the tab mid-word warns you, like any unsaved change. If the system hides or freezes the tab — an iPad going to the home screen — the save has started and usually lands; at worst the last burst of strokes is lost.

Undo takes back the last burst — what you wrote since your last pause — not a single stroke. Every other change, such as placing an icon, is a step of its own, and undo goes back 200 steps.

If the drawing cannot take the ink for now — its session was locked while you wrote, say — the strokes stay where you drew them, a line at the top says why, and they are saved as soon as they can be. Ink that can never be saved, because its annotation or sheet was deleted meanwhile, is removed with one line saying so.

When things go wrong

• The connection drops: keep working. Changes stay on this device and sync when it returns. Do not treat a closed laptop as synced until the icon says Synced.
• Two people edit the same device: a deletion wins over another's move, and Undo reverses only your own changes.
• Safety copies: Recovery copies, under the arrow beside Save, holds this device's copies so separate changes can be compared. See download a recovery file.
• No internet: a project switched to Offline still opens and edits. See work without internet.
• Too many drawings open at once: the status explains it and your work keeps saving on this device. It syncs by itself once a drawing closes.
• A very large drawing needs room to be shared live. If there is not enough free at that moment the status says so and it syncs once another drawing closes. If a drawing has grown too large to share at all, the status says that instead — it keeps saving on your device, and support can help before you add more to it.
• Syncing cannot finish, or the same things changed online: see finish syncing after offline work.

Saving is separate from versions, which you keep on purpose; see save a version or restore one.