Skip to content
Handbook
EN DE
Open markbird

← Handbook

Sharing & collaboration

Sharing is the one feature that deliberately puts a copy of a document on a server, because a recipient has to be able to load it. Nothing is shared until you create a link.

Share read-only link creates an unguessable address to a copy of the document. Recipients open it in a browser with no account and no app.

The copy is a snapshot: further edits in your library do not change what a recipient sees unless you update the share.

Options

Share with options… adds:

  • Expiry — the link stops working at a date you choose. You can change the expiry of an existing link later.
  • Password — recipients must enter it to read.
  • Access level — read-only, or editable.

An editable link lets several people work on the same document at once, with live cursors and presence so you can see who is where. It is built on CRDTs (Yjs), so simultaneous edits merge rather than overwrite.

Real-time collaboration is best-effort and needs a stable connection. For a document that matters, keep the authoritative copy in your own library.

Manage shared links… lists everything you have shared, with the ability to change expiry or revoke a link. Revoking takes effect immediately and deletes the server-side copy.

Below that, Links from this device lists every link made here, including links made without an account. markbird keeps the deletion secret the server hands out once when a link is created, which is what lets you delete such a link — there is no account for it to be listed under. You can also copy the deletion link and keep it somewhere else: opening it offers to delete the shared copy, from any device.

Because a secret can be lost, links made without an account always expire: after 30 days by default, and after 90 days at the most.

Publishing a folder as a site

Publish a folder as a site… takes every note in a folder — and its subfolders — and puts it up as one small website at markbird.md/p/<address>, one page per note. Each page lists the other pages, and a [[wiki link]] between two published notes is a working link; a link to a note that was not published stays plain text rather than leading nowhere.

What is published is a copy, like every other shared link: later edits in your library do not change the site, and publishing again makes a new one. Each page is also an ordinary shared note underneath, so it can be reported, it expires with the site, and taking the site down removes every page and its content from the server.

One link takes the whole site down again, and markbird keeps it on this device under Links from this device. Without an account a site expires like any other link: 30 days by default, 90 at the most.

Reporting a shared document

Every shared document has a Report this document link at the bottom. You do not need an account to use it — the person a document is about is rarely a markbird user.

Choose a reason (illegal content, copyright, your personal data, harassment or abuse, something else), add details if they help, and optionally an email address if you want to hear back. We review each report and, where a document breaks the rules, remove it: the share and its server-side copy are deleted, exactly as when its owner revokes the link.

Once a report is handled, the details and email address you gave are deleted.

A shared link posted in a chat or social app shows a preview card generated for that specific document — its title, not a generic banner.

What leaves your device

Creating a share uploads a copy of that one document to markbird's servers in the EU. Documents you have not shared are unaffected. Deleting your account removes your shares along with everything else. See Privacy & data.