Share a notebook with family or friends

Before you start

• You need a Memlow account and a username, and so does everyone you invite.
• Google Drive backup must be on. Your sharing key is kept safe with your backup key.
• Sharing a locked folder unlocks it, because everyone in it needs to read its notes.

Share a folder

Accept an invitation

1. Open Shared (under Folders on Android and on a phone's browser, in the sidebar on a computer). Home also shows a banner: "Open Shared to accept".
2. Find the invitation at the top, and choose Accept, or Decline.
3. The notebook appears with your folders, with a people icon. Its notes are ordinary notes.

If it says "Waiting for the owner's Memlow to send the key. Ask them to open Memlow.", the owner's app hasn't sent your key yet. It does the next time they open Memlow.

What each role can do

A notebook can have up to 19 people besides its owner. A note says "Edited by" and a name when someone else changed it last. Tap a person's name or picture to see their profile card.

Working together

• Changes arrive within about a second while the notebook is open on both sides. Typing at the same time keeps both people's words.
• Shared notes can't be locked. To move a locked note in, unlock it first.
• Shared notes aren't in your Google Drive backups. They live in the notebook itself.
• Pins and Archive stay on the device where you set them. Pinning a shared note pins it only there.
• A shared note in Trash goes for everyone after 30 days.
• New notes in a shared folder can start from the Shared expenses template: who paid what, with the total adding itself up.

Leave a notebook

1. Open the notebook's sharing sheet: People and sharing.
2. Choose Leave notebook.
3. Leave Keep a copy of its notes as my own on if you want to keep them. They go into a folder of their own.

Its notes then leave this device and your other devices. Everyone else keeps them.

Stop sharing

Only the owner can do this.

1. Open People and sharing on the notebook.
2. Choose Stop sharing.

The notebook goes away for everyone you shared it with. Its notes stay with you as your own. To share with a group you invite once, use Teams.

Notebooks nobody uses

If nobody changes a shared notebook for 6 months, its owner sees a notice: the notebook "hasn't been used for 6 months", and the date it stops being shared. Choose Keep sharing to carry on. After 12 months without use, sharing stops and every member keeps the notes as their own. Members see "Your copy stays in your notes."

Privacy and space

Notes, photos and recordings are encrypted on your device before they leave it, with a key only the people in the notebook have. Memlow and its storage provider only ever hold encrypted files. Memlow's server does know who is in each notebook, so it can send invitations. See Where your notes live and what's encrypted.

Each account can keep up to 1 GB in the notebooks it owns. Shared shows Sharing space and Free up space. See Storage is full.

Questions and answers