The canvas always works without signing in. You can land on a new canvas, build something real, and only later decide whether you want an account. To make that possible, livediagram gives every guest a quiet, per-browser identity that owns whatever you put on the server.
Your per-browser id
The first time you visit, your browser takes a quick trip to the liveworkspace accounts site and comes back with a guest token, which it keeps in localStorage. The token names your guest id and lasts a year, renewed when you visit in its last month. Everything of yours on the server as a guest (canvases you share or sync, folders, images) is owned by that id, which is how the app knows which content to show you when you come back. The editor sends the token with each request; you never see or type it.
Your guest id is liveworkspace's, so the other liveworkspace apps you use in the same browser know you as the same guest.
New canvases you make as a guest start offline, saved only in this browser, so nothing you try out is sent to our servers until you choose to. To share one, open Share and press Sync Canvas: it uploads under your guest id and the Share options appear. A canvas you create inside a folder or import from the Explorer goes to the server straight away.
Two things follow from this:
- It is per browser, not per person. The id lives in one browser on one device. Open livediagram in a different browser or on another device and you get a fresh guest id, so your earlier canvases will not appear there.
- It is not cross-device. Guest content does not sync between devices, because there is no account tying them together yet.
As a guest you still get the core of livediagram: saving, share links and real-time collaboration all work, once a canvas is synced. A few things need an address or an account to attach to, so they ask you to sign in: teams, API tokens, connecting an AI tool, email notifications and the Google Drive mirror.
What this means for your data
Because your guest content is tied to a single browser, clearing that browser's storage, or using private browsing that discards it, deletes your canvases in This Browser and means the app can no longer recognise you as the owner of the ones on the server. Those are still there, but nothing in a fresh browser can claim them back. Treat your guest canvases as living in that browser.
Share links are the exception: anyone holding one, including you in another browser, can still open that canvas with the link's role. They just won't be its owner there.
If you want your canvases to follow you across browsers and devices, signing in is the answer. When you sign in, whether to a new account or an existing one, the canvases of yours on the server move into it automatically, and we offer to move the ones in This Browser too, so you do not lose the work you have already done.
Doing serious work as a guest? Create an account before clearing your browser data, and move your canvases in This Browser across when we offer, so nothing is left behind.
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