# Sharing and permissions

> Boards are shared by membership, single items can go to a single person, and connections let you find and talk to people outside your workspaces.

There are three ways to share, and they answer different questions.

| You want to                                       | Use                                        |
| ------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Work on a board together                          | Board sharing, with a role for each person |
| Show one person one note, whiteboard or checklist | Per-item sharing                           |
| Reach someone who is in none of your workspaces   | A connection                               |

## Share a board

Who can see a board is decided by who is on it. Creating a board puts one
person on it, the creator. Until you share it, nobody else in the workspace can
open it, even in a team or family workspace.

The share icon in a board's header opens the **Share board** dialog, which has
two tabs: **Members** and **Share links**.

**Board roles**

- **Owner**: everything, including who is on the board, its settings, archiving and
  deleting it.
- **Editor**: adds, edits, moves, completes and assigns cards, and changes columns.
- **Viewer**: opens the board, reads its cards and comments on them. No edits.

Everything else follows from the board. A card is visible if its board is, and
a comment is visible if its card is.

Only a board's owners can change who is on it. Being an editor lets you do the
work, not hand the board to someone else.

### Invite links

Share links makes a link that puts whoever opens it on the board.

1. Pick the role the link grants, editor or viewer.
2. Pick when it expires: 7 days, 30 days or never.
3. Optionally cap how many people can use it.
4. Create it. The link is copied for you.

The person opening it has to sign in first, so a link never gives access to
someone anonymous. An owner can revoke a link from the same tab, and it stops
working at once.

> **Tip: In a team workspace** Owners and admins can see every board in a team workspace, including the ones
> only one person can open, under **Team → Access**, and fix access from there.
> See [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub).

## Share one thing with one person

Sometimes one person needs to see one thing without it moving into a shared
space. Notes, whiteboards, checklists and imported designs can each be shared
on their own, as viewer or editor. **Share note** is in a note's menu.

The person picker suggests people you already know: members of your workspaces
and your connections, found by name. Anyone else on Margin can be reached by
typing their exact email. The person you share with gets a notification that
opens the item, and finds it afterwards under **Shared with me** on the notes,
checklists or whiteboards list, on the web and in the phone app.

A share never hands over ownership. As an editor you can change the content.
You cannot share it on, move it into your folders, delete it, or change its
privacy settings. Those stay with the owner.

## A view-only link for someone not on The Margin

A shopping list, a recipe or a note can go to someone who will never sign up:
the babysitter, a grandparent. Open the list's **Link**, the
recipe's **Share a view-only link**, or a note's share dialog,
and press **Make a view-only link**. The link is copied for
you. On the phone it opens the share sheet, so you can text it straight away.

Whoever opens the link sees the list's items and what is checked off, the
recipe's ingredients and steps, or the note's words. Never a person's name, a
picture or an attachment, so a child's details cannot leave through it. The
page is not shown to search engines. It is read-only and updates as the list
changes.

**Stop the link** closes it at once: anyone holding it then
sees "This link is not available". A note that is locked with a PIN or sealed in
the vault cannot be shared this way, and locking a note later closes its link
too. Only the person who wrote a note, or a workspace owner or admin, can share
it by link. Links work on every plan, Free included.

An assistant connected over MCP can do the same with `create_public_link`,
`get_public_link` and `revoke_public_link`.

## Connections

A connection is two people who have agreed to know each other on Margin,
whatever workspaces they are in. Send a request by email from **Settings →
Connections**, and it becomes a connection when the other person accepts.

**What a connection gives you**

- **Finding by name**: they show up by name when you share, instead of you having to know their
  email.
- **Chat**: you can start a direct thread with them. See [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat).
- **Money owed**: a debt can name them, and they are asked to confirm it. See [Expenses and
  money](https://themarginapp.com/docs/expenses-and-money).

Neither of you joins the other's workspace. Removing a connection is on the same
page.

## Who can manage sharing

| What                                    | Who decides who else sees it                           |
| --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| A board                                 | The board's owners                                     |
| A note, whiteboard, checklist or design | Whoever made it, and the workspace's owners and admins |

Being given editor access to something never lets you pass it on.

## What sharing does not do

It does not share your assistant. Shared content is readable by the people you
shared it with, and the assistant works per person: yours answers from what you
can see, and theirs from what they can see.

It does not open the Vault either. A Vault belongs to one person in one
workspace, and someone else unlocking their own Vault never shows them
yours.

> **For agents:** `share_resource`, `unshare_resource` and `list_resource_shares` handle
> per-item sharing, and refuse on the same plans the app does.
> `send_connection_request` and `list_connections` cover connections.

## Share your workspace with one other person

Every plan, Free included, lets you invite one other person into your own
workspace. From **Settings**, **People**, choose **Invite** and enter their
email. Once they accept, you both see the workspace's notes, checklists,
whiteboards, expenses and habits, and you can chat. Boards still go one at a
time: open a board's **Share** dialog and add them from the list of people in
the workspace.

A personal workspace holds two people in all, you and them, and an invitation
nobody has answered yet holds the second place. The person you invite keeps
their own free workspace too, with its own invite.

Inviting a third person is refused with what each plan adds. A household goes
in a family workspace on Family (up to 6 people, with chores, allowances,
points, the meal plan, the shopping list and the wall display). People you
work with go in a team workspace on Team. On Family you can also bring people
already in your household into your other workspaces without using the
second place.

## Availability

|                                                         | Free | Pro  | Family                 | Team         |
| ------------------------------------------------------- | ---- | ---- | ---------------------- | ------------ |
| People in your own workspace (you included)             | 2    | 2    | 2, plus your household | one per seat |
| Adding people in the workspace to a board               | yes  | yes  | yes                    | yes          |
| Sharing a board with people outside it, and share links | no   | no   | yes                    | yes          |
| Sharing single items with people outside the workspace  | no   | no   | yes                    | yes          |
| Live cursors and presence                               | no   | no   | yes                    | yes          |
| Writing in one note together                            | no   | no   | yes                    | yes          |
| Guests (outside people per workspace)                   | none | none | 10                     | 50           |
| Connections                                             | yes  | yes  | yes                    | yes          |
| Chat                                                    | yes  | yes  | yes                    | yes          |

Free and Pro hold you and one other person. Family is for one household: you
can invite your household into your workspaces and share a single board or note
with up to 10 people outside it. Bringing a group of people you work with into
a workspace is Team's, and on Team the people you share with from outside are
guests, who never take a seat. On Free and Pro the share dialogs offer the
people already in the workspace and show what a plan adds for anyone else,
rather than an invite that would be refused. See
[Plans and limits](https://themarginapp.com/docs/plans-and-limits).

**Where to next**

- [Team hub](https://themarginapp.com/docs/team-hub): roles, seats and who can open which board
- [Family workspaces](https://themarginapp.com/docs/family): what the household sees of each other
- [Chat](https://themarginapp.com/docs/chat): talking to the people you share with


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Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 6, 2026.
Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/sharing-and-permissions. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt
