# Boards and cards > Board, list, calendar and timeline views, saved views across boards, what a card holds, dependencies, custom fields and rules, selecting and acting on many cards with undo, recurrence, WIP limits, sharing, and archiving without losing anything. A board is a project, a routine, or an area of life. It holds columns, and columns hold cards. New boards start with To Do, In Progress and Done, or with a five-step pipeline for design requests, and you can rename or rearrange the columns afterwards. ## Four views of the same board The view switch sits in the board's header, beside the filter and sort buttons. On a phone it is in the board's menu, under View. - **Board** is the default: columns side by side, and you drag cards between them. - **List** shows the same cards as rows you can sort by title, status, due date or priority. Press `V` then `L` to flip between Board and List. - **Calendar** puts each card on the day it is due, a month at a time. Tap a day to read its cards underneath, and tap a card to open it. - **Timeline** draws each card as a bar from its start date to its due date, six weeks at a time, grouped by column. A card with only one of the two dates is a single day. Every view reads the board's filter, so "assigned to me, urgent" narrows the calendar and the timeline the same way it narrows the columns. A board remembers the view you last used on it. Cards with no date are counted above the calendar and the timeline, so nothing goes missing without a word. All four views are on every plan, Free included. ## Saved views A saved view keeps a filter across every board in a workspace: "due this week, assigned to me", "overdue", "urgent or high". Your views sit under **Views** in the sidebar, and only you see them. To make one, press **+** beside Views in the sidebar, or open a board's filter and press **Save as a view** to keep what you have set. Each choice is a chip that reads as plain words, and the line under the name says the whole filter back with the number of cards it matches right now. A view can narrow by due date, by who it is assigned to, by priority, by label name, by board, and by whether cards are open or finished. Open cards are the default. A view's page lists its cards by when they are due (overdue, today, tomorrow, this week, later, no date), each with its board and column. Check a card to finish it, or tap its title to open it on its board. Deleting a view removes only the filter; every card stays where it is. Saved views come with Pro, Family and Team. On Free the Views section is still there and says what it would do. > **On the phone:** In the phone app, a board's title has a **Board**, **Calendar** and > **Timeline** switch under it. The timeline reads down instead of across: the > open cards grouped by the day they are due, overdue first, each naming who > holds it. **Views** is in the Plan group of the contents, with the same four > starting points as the web; a view opens to its cards, and **Edit** changes > the filter. Moving a card to another board is under its column chip, as > **Another board**, and the board's owner can delete it from the board's menu, > after a question that names how many cards go with it. A column moves one > place at a time: tap its name and choose **Move left** or **Move right**. > A card's **⋯** menu has **Save as template**. A column can carry a WIP limit, set from the column's menu. Go over it and the column header tells you. It does not stop you, because a limit that blocks work gets deleted within a week. > **On the phone:** On a phone a board shows one column at a time, with tabs across the top; > swipe sideways to change column. Swipe a card right to complete it and left > to delete it, and long-press to start selecting. ## What a card holds **The parts of a card** - **Properties**: assignees, labels, a due date, a reminder, a repeat rule and a priority. - **Body**: a markdown description and any number of checklists. - **Around it**: comments, attachments, Canva designs and the notes filed against it. From a card's actions you can also move it to another board, or keep its shape with **Save as template** for the next time you write the same thing out. See [Templates and presets](https://themarginapp.com/docs/templates). **Attach file** under Attachments takes any file up to 25 MB. A picture can be opened on a whiteboard to draw over it, and on Pro, Family and Team the words in pictures and PDFs are read so search can find them. See [Files and scans](https://themarginapp.com/docs/files-and-scans). An audio file attached to a card can become text: **Transcribe to a note** on the attachment writes a note in your Inbox, filed against the card, and counts against your cloud voice minutes. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). ## Talking instead of typing on a card A small mic sits beside a card's title, in the box where you add a new card, beside a card's description and in a checklist's add-item field. Tap it and talk, or hold it while you talk and let go. What you say is written where the cursor was, and a small panel shows what it heard so you can check it. The mic runs no commands: what you say into the title becomes the title. Cloud dictation counts against your plan's voice minutes. The phone app has the same mics. See [Talking instead of typing](https://themarginapp.com/docs/voice). ## Waiting on another card, fields and rules These three come with the Team plan, for boards several people run together. **Waiting on.** Open a card and press **Add** under Waiting on to pick the cards on the same board that must be done first. The card's tile then says "Waiting on 2" until they are, so whether you can start is answered by looking. A card cannot wait on itself, and the picker leaves out any card that already waits on this one, because two cards waiting on each other would never be ready. **Fields.** In the board's settings, under **Fields**, add the extra facts every card on the board can carry: text, a number, a choice from a list you write, or a date. Estimate, client, size, sprint. Fill them in from the card, under Waiting on. Fields sync like everything else, so they work offline. **Rules.** In the board's settings, under **Rules**, press **New rule** and pick two things from menus: when (a card moves to a column, is completed, or is added) and then (tell someone, assign someone, set the priority, set a field, mark it done, or move it to a column). Add up to five steps. The rule reads back as one sentence before you save it, for example "When a card moves to Done, tell Sam and set priority to high." A rule runs on our server a moment after the move, whichever device made it, online or offline once it syncs. The changes a rule makes never set off another rule, so two rules cannot ping-pong a card between columns, and a card dragged back and forth runs at most 20 rules in ten minutes. Turn a rule off with its switch, or delete it; what it already did stays done. A board holds 10 rules. In the phone app, Waiting on and Fields sit on the card under the checklist, and **Fields and rules** in the board's menu adds fields and builds rules from chips. Rules need a connection to read and change, because they are kept where they run; fields work offline. ## Mentioning someone in a comment Type `@` and a name in a card's comment, or press the **@** button beside the comment box and pick a person. Anyone on the board can be mentioned. When the comment is posted, each person it names gets a notification that opens the card, and a push where they have push on. You are never notified about your own comment, and editing a comment notifies only the people it newly names. On the phone, the board's people sit as chips above the reply field. An assistant connected over MCP does the same: `add_comment` with `@Name` in the text notifies that board member. ## Typing a card in one line Type the whole thing where you add a card and the parts are read as you go: ``` dentist Tue 3pm every 6 months #family @Maya !high ``` The words it read light up in place and show as chips under the field. Here that is a date, a time, a repeat, a label, a person and a priority. The card is called "dentist". If a chip is wrong, press its x: the words go back into the title as you typed them, and stay there as you keep typing. Nothing is saved until you press Enter. ![One line becomes a card with a date, a time, a repeat, a label and a priority (15 seconds, silent).](https://themarginapp.com/docs/media/loops/dl94/dl94-poster.webp) _One line becomes a card with a date, a time, a repeat, a label and a priority (15 seconds, silent)._ | Type | And you get | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `today`, `tomorrow`, `Fri`, `next week`, `Oct 12`, `10/12`, `in 3 days`, `end of month` | A due date | | `3pm`, `9:30am`, `at 6`, `noon`, `tonight`, `tomorrow morning` | A time on that date | | `daily`, `every weekday`, `every Mon and Thu`, `every other week`, `every 6 months`, `every 15th` | A repeat | | `#family` | A label on this board, made for you if the board has none called that | | `@Maya` | Maya assigned, when she is on the board. Nobody is messaged, and a name nobody on the board answers to is pointed out, not guessed | | `!urgent`, `!high`, `!low`, or `p1` to `p4` | A priority | Dates are read in your time zone, month first (`10/12` is October 12). A day name means the next one coming, so `Tue` typed on a Tuesday is next week's. A time with no date is today, or tomorrow once that time has passed. A repeat with no date starts at its first turn: `every Monday` starts on the coming Monday. The same reading works in the Today page's add row, in quick capture (see [the Inbox](https://themarginapp.com/docs/notes#the-inbox)), on a new event, on a new chore, and on the shopping list, where `milk x2` or `2 kg flour` fills the quantity. ## Recurring cards A repeating card makes its next copy when you complete it, not on a timer. The new copy is dated one interval on from the old due date, so a weekly card due on Monday comes back the following Monday however late in the week you check it off. That is deliberate. A timer that keeps minting copies whether or not you did the last one produces a pile of overdue duplicates, and that pile is how people give up on a task app. Here a skipped week leaves one late card. When a week genuinely is not happening, use **Skip this occurrence** under the card's repeat setting (in the phone app, under **⋯**, then **Repeats**). It marks this one done without making the next copy. > **Note:** A repeat rule needs a due date to count from. A card with no date will not > repeat. ## Selecting many cards at once **Clearing out a board** 1. Hold `⌘` and click cards to add them to a selection. `⌘`-clicking a column header selects the column instead, for deleting columns. 2. Press `Del` or `⌫` to delete what you selected. It asks first. 3. Press `Esc` to let go of the selection without doing anything. List view selects with the box at the start of each row, and `⇧`-clicking a box selects the range up to it. The bar that appears offers **Complete** and **Delete** for everything checked. | Keys | Action | | ------------ | ----------------------------------------------------- | | `V L` | Switch between kanban and list view | | `⌘` `Click` | On the board, add or remove a card from the selection | | `⇧` `Click` | In list view, select a range of rows | | `Esc` | Clear the selection | | `Del` or `⌫` | Delete what is selected | | `⌘ Z` | Undo | | `⌘ ⇧ Z` | Redo | Moving a card, editing one and deleting cards or columns all go into the undo history, batch deletes included. On a phone the same undo arrives as a toast, since there is no `⌘` to press. See [Keyboard shortcuts](https://themarginapp.com/docs/keyboard-shortcuts). ## Sharing a board Boards are shared one at a time, with editor and viewer roles alongside the owner. A board someone shares with you appears on your Boards page under **Shared with me**, even though it lives in their workspace. The phone app's Boards list has the same section at its foot. > **Known limit: Sharing outside the workspace is Family or Team** On every plan you can add the people already in your workspace to a board, and > Free and Pro hold you and one other person. Sharing a board with someone > outside the workspace, or by link, needs Family or Team. See > [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions). To hide a board from people looking over your shoulder, and from the assistant, seal it in your Vault from the board's settings. The old per-board PIN is retired; one Vault passphrase now covers everything you seal. See [Your data](https://themarginapp.com/docs/your-data). ## Archiving, and getting it back Archiving a board takes it off the Boards page, the pinned sidebar rail, search, the workspace pulse and the team workload in one go. Nothing is thrown away. The toast that confirms it carries an **Undo** for eight seconds. After that, archived boards wait under **Archived** at the foot of the Boards page, with a count beside the heading. Each row has **Restore**, and a delete button for when you mean it. > **Careful: Deleting an archived board is final** The delete asks first, because the board, its columns and every card on it > go from every device. ## Limits **How much a board can hold** - **5** boards on Free. Pro, Family and Team do not count boards. - **200** cards in one board on Free - **2,000** cards in one board on Pro and Family - **5,000** cards in one board on Team The per-board card cap is there to stop a runaway import, and it applies on every plan. Archiving a board does not free a slot, because an archived board is still a board. Delete it if you need the room. See [Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits). **Where to next** - [Planner, Today, and Calendar](https://themarginapp.com/docs/planner-today-and-calendar): the same cards, arranged by when they are due - [Templates and presets](https://themarginapp.com/docs/templates): card templates and the starting columns - [Sharing and permissions](https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions): who can see a board and what they can change --- Section: Doing the work. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026. Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/boards-and-cards. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt