If you have not signed in, your plan lives in your browser and saves itself
as you draw — close the tab, come back later, and it is still there. Nothing has
been uploaded anywhere. That also means it is only on that computer, in that
browser: for a real backup, use Export → Gridsnap file and keep the
.gridsnap.json it downloads.
Without an account
- Every open plan is a tab, and every tab has its own slot in your browser’s storage, its own undo history and its own name. All of them survive a reload.
- Saving is automatic and continuous; there is no Save button to forget.
- Nothing leaves your device. We cannot see these plans, and there is no way to recover them for you.
You will lose them if you clear your browsing data for the site, use a private window (which forgets everything on close), or open the editor in a different browser or on a different machine. Browser storage is also finite — a plan with a large traced image behind it is the usual case where saving quietly starts failing.
The file
Export → Gridsnap file downloads the whole plan as a .gridsnap.json, named
after your project. It is the editable original — every floor, every setting —
not a picture of it.
To open one again: Open… in the top bar, then Open a .gridsnap.json file…, or simply drag the file onto the editor window (it opens in a new tab).
That file is what you email to a colleague, drop in Dropbox, or keep alongside the PDF you sent the builder. PDF, PNG and DXF exports are output — they cannot be opened back into the editor.
With an account
Signing in and saving the plan as a project moves the working copy to the cloud:
- Changes sync automatically a couple of seconds after you stop drawing.
- The plan is available from any browser you sign in to.
- If the same project was changed somewhere else in the meantime, you are asked what to do rather than one copy silently winning.
- Free accounts sync one project — the most recently edited one stays writable, and older ones become read-only until you upgrade. Local tabs are unlimited either way.
- Version history is recorded for every account (a snapshot every ten minutes or so of active editing, up to 30 kept), but browsing and restoring those revisions is a Pro feature. Restoring is itself undoable — a snapshot is taken before the restore lands.
A new tab is deliberately not linked to the cloud. You opt a plan into syncing by saving it as a project, never by accident, and starting a new plan or opening a file unlinks first — so a new drawing can never overwrite a cloud project you had open a moment ago.
Share links
A share link uploads a read-only copy that anyone with the link can open and duplicate into their own editor. It is unlisted, and Revoke in the share dialog deletes that copy. Exports stay watermark-free either way.
What this doesn’t do
- There is no autosave to a file on your disk. The browser saves for you;
the
.gridsnap.jsonexport is a deliberate action. - We cannot recover a lost local plan. If it was never synced or exported, it existed only in that browser.
- Very large plans have a ceiling in the cloud. A synced document is capped at roughly 900 KB, and traced underlay images are stripped from the upload before that limit bites — the image stays in your local copy, not in the synced one.