Where maps live
Flozu keeps your maps in one of three places. As a guest in a browser, or in the Mac app, they stay on your computer unless you export them or share a link. Signed in, they’re kept in your account, so they open wherever you sign in.
| Where | Maps | Projects and folders | Versions |
|---|---|---|---|
| In a browser | The browser’s own storage (IndexedDB) | Records beside the maps | A separate database of their own |
| In the Mac app | .flozu.json files in Documents › Flozu |
Real folders there | Files in a hidden .versions folder |
| In an account | Flozu’s database, one record per map | Records beside the maps | Records beside each map |
In a browser
Section titled “In a browser”Maps are kept in the browser you made them in, for the address Flozu runs at. Another browser, another computer, or a private window doesn’t see them.
Moving and sharing maps
Section titled “Moving and sharing maps”- To move maps to another browser or computer, export them and import them there. A bundle takes a whole project, or every map, with its folders and history.
- To show it to someone, share a link. The
map is packed inside the link, after the
#, which browsers never send to the server. - To keep them safe, export every map from the Maps page, or use the Mac app and back up your Documents folder.
What Flozu checks when it reads a map
Section titled “What Flozu checks when it reads a map”Every map is checked, and updated if it was made by an older version, as it’s read: from storage, from a file, from a link or from a version. A map that can’t be read is left where it is rather than deleted, and a map from a newer version of Flozu is refused with a message to update.
Every save is stamped with when it happened, which also tells copies of a map apart. Each save from the editor names the copy it started from, so storage refuses to save over a copy that changed since you opened it: a save from another tab, a file edited in another app, or, with an account, another device or another person in your team. Nobody’s work is lost to someone else’s save. Your changes are kept as a proposal on the map, and the editor shows the other copy.
A save that fails, such as with no connection, still counts as waiting. Flozu tries it again after two seconds, then four, and so on up to every thirty, and straight away when the browser is back online. A save made as you close the tab is sent so that it still arrives after the tab has gone, and if a save is still on its way or failing, the browser asks before you leave.
In an account
Section titled “In an account”Signed in on the web, your maps are kept in your account, on Flozu’s servers, in the same way the browser and the Mac app keep them. Each map is kept whole, exactly as a file holds it, with a short summary beside it (its name, the kinds of part and technologies in it, and its words) so maps can be listed and searched without opening them. Projects and folders work just as they do in the browser, and a map’s versions and proposals travel with it, so its history is there wherever you open it.
Because each save goes over the network, a map in an account saves two seconds after your last edit, and at most every five seconds while you keep editing, rather than after every change. During the free beta, an account has fair-use limits that normal use never meets: a map can hold up to 2 MB, your own maps and their versions up to 250 MB, a team’s up to 1 GB, and each map up to 250 versions and proposals. A full workspace still saves the maps already in it; it only stops taking new ones. The beta also has room for 5,000 accounts in all: once it’s full, someone new is told so when they sign in, and everyone with an account carries on as before. The Usage page shows how much of each limit a workspace uses.
Each map belongs to one workspace: your own, which only you see, or a team’s, which everyone in it sees by their role. Signed in, the web shows your account’s maps only, and the maps you made in the browser stay there until you move them in. The Mac app lists its own maps beside the account’s. An assistant such as Claude can draw maps straight into your account once you sign in and allow it, while your code stays on your computer.
Your account menu downloads everything Flozu keeps about you, as a bundle you can import, and deletes your account and your own maps for good; maps you made in a team stay with the team. The privacy notice in the app says what an account keeps and why. As a guest, or in the Mac app, nothing you draw leaves your computer unless you send it.