Sync

Getting an account

There are two places your Spaces can sync through:

• Ubimate's sync service. Accounts need activation while it gets ready to launch; join the waitlist and we will send you an activation email.
• A server you run yourself, which works today and needs no subscription. See Your own server.

The sync button is a cloud icon at the bottom of the rail on the left. If you do not see it, switch on Sync in Settings.

Creating your account

Your activation email has a Create your account button and an activation token. The activation lasts seven days and works once.

1. In the app, click the sync button and choose Create account.
2. Paste the token from the email into Activation token.
3. Enter your display name and email, and click Continue.
4. Choose your passphrase — see below — and click Create account.

The button in the email opens the same form in your browser, with the token filled in. If you create the account there, use Sign in in the app afterwards.

Your email is permanent: it is part of how your encryption keys are made, so it cannot be changed later. An address you will keep, or a forwarding address such as Apple's Hide My Email, is a good choice. Mail from us goes to a separate contact address, which starts out as this one; changing it from the app is coming in a later version.

Your passphrase

Your passphrase encrypts everything you keep in Ubimate, on your device, before anything is sent. Ubimate never sees it — which means we cannot reset it for you either.

A good passphrase is several random words, like cradle velvet ostrich unfold cactus remedy: long enough to be hard to guess, easy enough to type. Generate a passphrase picks six for you, and Copy puts them on the clipboard for your password manager. The meter has to reach Strong before the account can be created, and you confirm that you have stored it somewhere safe.

The app keeps your email and passphrase in your computer's keychain, so it does not ask again each time it starts.

Forgotten it anyway? Keep working as before: nothing on your computer changes. Everything there can be synced again under a new account; only what was in the old account alone stays closed.

Adding another computer

Install Ubimate on the other computer, click the sync button, and choose Sign in with the same email and passphrase.

If that computer already has pages of its own that were never synced, they are added to your account, and its Spaces join the ones you have. Two Inboxes become one.

If its pages belong to a different account, the app asks first. Agree, and those pages are moved aside — not deleted — into a folder named after the other account, its HTML copy is renamed to match, and the app restarts signed in as you. If some of those pages had changes that were never synced, the app warns you; cancel and sign in as the other account first to keep them there.

A first sync can take a while with a big workspace. You can keep working, and if you quit before it finishes it carries on next time.

What syncs

Everything: every Space, Inbox and Home included, every page, your images and files, Favorites, and what is archived or in the Trash. Deleting something permanently deletes it everywhere.

What stays on each computer: Recent, and your Settings — theme, font size, the HTML copy and the rest.

Each Space has its own key, and what is sent is encrypted with it first. The server stores and relays what it cannot read; the security page explains what it can and cannot see.

Offline, and two places at once

Nothing about writing depends on the connection. Offline, you carry on as usual; the app keeps checking, and when the connection comes back your changes go up and other devices' come down without you doing anything.

There are no conflicts to resolve. Text edited in two places at once is merged, so both sets of edits survive. For a page's title, icon, place in the tree and whether it is archived or trashed, the most recent change wins.

With the same page open on two computers, each shows the other's cursor, labeled with your name.

The sync button

Hover over it to see what it is doing:

Signing out

Click your name at the top right of the window and choose Log out. Your pages stay on this computer and in your account; the app simply stops syncing. Signing in again picks up where it left off.

To hide sync altogether, sign out and then switch off Sync in Settings.

Changing or resetting your passphrase, and deleting your account, are not implemented yet. Write to hello@ubimate.com if you need your account closed.

Your own server

The sync server is published at github.com/ubimate/ubimate-server and runs with docker compose up. To use one:

1. In Settings, open Custom server URL and enter its address, such as https://sync.example.com.
2. Click the sync button and create an account or sign in, as above. A server that requires activation gives you an activation token from its administrator.

Leave the field empty to use Ubimate's service.

When something is wrong

Anything else: write to hello@ubimate.com with the message you see. Never send your passphrase — nobody here needs it, or will ask.