Share a chapter with people, by link, or publicly
Let someone read a chapter of your own thinking as it reads now, keep up as it changes, and bring it into their own answers.
You can share a chapter of your own thinking with other people. They read it as you do, the same chapter page with its quotes and figure, and they get its updates as your thinking changes. It isn’t a copy: they always read it as it reads now.
To give a chapter to the team or one of your groups instead, see Share or move chapters to the team or a group.
Share a chapter
- Open the chapter and choose Share, just before ⋯ beside its title.
- Type one or more email addresses and choose Share.
Someone who already uses Cranes gets an email and finds the chapter under Shared in their contents. Someone who doesn’t is invited to join, with the chapter named in the invitation.
Share appears only on chapters of your own thinking. The team’s and a group’s chapters belong to everyone there.
Choose who can open the link
Under Who can open the link:
- Only people you add: only the people listed above can open it, once they sign in with that email.
- Anyone in Cranes with the link: anyone signed in to Cranes who has the link can read it and add it to their Shared list.
- Public, in the Library: anyone can read it, even without Cranes, and it’s listed in the Library for everyone in Cranes to find. Cranes asks before making it public.
When a share has a link, Copy copies it.
What they can do with it
A chapter shared with someone shapes their own answers, in Cranes threads and in the AIs they use, credited to you, when it bears on what they’re asking. It never becomes part of their thinking or your team’s, and it’s never used in a team’s or a group’s answers.
They can also choose Make it yours, which copies it into their own thinking. From then on it’s theirs to change, and it no longer updates from you.
See who has it
The Share popover shows how many people have the chapter in their Shared list and how many made it their own. It lists the people you added, each with × to stop sharing with them.
When the chapter changes
Shares follow the chapter as Cranes rewrites your thinking, the same way your pins and names do. If two chapters are combined, the share goes to the one that remains. If one is split, it stays with the part that keeps the chapter’s name.
Sometimes a share can’t follow: you archive the chapter, Cranes retires it, or a redraft leaves no clear match. Then the people you shared it with keep its last version, marked as no longer updated, and it stops shaping their answers. It also leaves the Library. To point them to the chapter that continues it:
- Open Share on the archived chapter and choose a chapter under Continue it in…, or
- On your Today page, under Needs a look, choose the chapter that continues it.
Stop sharing
Open Share and choose Stop sharing. The link stops opening, and the chapter leaves everyone’s Shared list. Anyone who already chose Make it yours keeps their copy.
In a team
In a team, sharing chapters of your own thinking is off until an owner or admin allows it. If you don’t see Share, ask them. See People and roles on a team.