A core principle of livediagram is that the canvas always works without signing in. A first-time visitor can open a new document, build something real, share it, and collaborate, all as a guest. Signing in is never a wall in front of the editor; it simply unlocks a few things that need an account to make sense. This article explains the difference so you can choose what suits you.
What you get as a guest
As a guest you have the full editing experience. Your work is saved automatically against your browser, so it is there when you come back on the same device.
- The full canvas: every shape, arrow, drawing tool, theme, and template.
- Persistence for your documents, on this device (sign in to sync across devices).
- Your settings, saved against the same per-browser id. See Guest Identity.
- Sharing and collaboration: open share links as an Editor, Participant or Viewer, and mint your own share links so others can join.
- Real-time presence on any shared session.
The one trade-off: your guest identity lives in your current browser. Clearing your browser data, or switching to another device, means that guest library does not follow you.
What an account adds
Creating a free account (at /get-started, confirmed with a code we email you, or with Google where it is enabled; see Signing In) adds the things that only make sense once you have an identity:
- Cross-device sync. Your documents travel with your account, so they appear on every device you sign in to.
- A persistent identity. Your display name comes from your profile rather than being set per session.
- Teams. Join or create a team to work in a shared space with teammates.
- Email notifications when someone joins or comments on your documents, mentions you, assigns you an action, or answers a team invite, on deployments that send email.
- A profile picture on your avatar, cursor and comments, where collaborators see it.
- Google Drive, to keep a copy of your documents in your own Drive.
- Publishing to the Community, the public gallery of shared boards.
- API tokens for your own scripts and for AI tools connected over MCP.
Accounts are free like everything else in livediagram, there is no paid tier.
The Sign-In Reminder
While you work as a guest, a card at the bottom of the screen reminds you that an account is there: Sign in to keep your work safe, with a line explaining that a free account syncs your documents across devices, survives a cache clear or browser restart, and carries your real name. It has two buttons and a close:
- Sign in takes you to the sign-in page, and brings you back where you were afterwards.
- Learn more opens Why sign in?, a short list of what an account adds: keeping your documents safe from a cache clear, opening them on any device, working as a team, connecting AI tools with API tokens, showing your real name to collaborators, and managing all your share links in one place. It has its own Sign in button, and Maybe later to close it.
- × dismisses the card.
When it appears. In the Explorer it shows straight away. In the editor it waits until you have been in a document for about five minutes, so it never greets you the moment you open one, and it stays out of Zen mode and embedded documents.
Dismissing it hides it everywhere in this browser, in the Explorer and the editor alike, and it doesn't come back. It is only a reminder: nothing stops working if you ignore it.
It never appears once you are signed in, or on a self-hosted copy that has no sign-in.
Moving from guest to account
You do not lose anything by signing up. When you create your account, or sign in to one, in the same browser, everything you built as a guest migrates into your account automatically: your documents and folders, favourites, custom themes, shape libraries and images. Your guest settings carry over to a new account; when you sign in to an account that already has settings, the account's settings are kept. The work you have already done carries over rather than being left behind.
The two paths also coexist forever: a signed-in user can hand a share link to a guest, who edits the same document with no account at all.
livediagram is open source, and accounts are optional. A self-hosted deployment can run in pure-guest mode with no sign-in at all, and the editor stays fully usable.
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