Your designs are the whole point, so it helps to know exactly where they live and who can reach them. livedesign stores designs on Cloudflare infrastructure behind an authenticated API, never in a third-party analytics product, and you keep control of them whether you sign in or stay a guest. This page explains how it works; the Privacy Policy, which covers every liveworkspace app, is the formal statement for the hosted service.
Where your designs live
Designs are saved through a single Cloudflare Worker API. The browser never talks to storage directly.
- Each design's content (its tabs and everything on them) lives in its own Cloudflare Durable Object, one per design, with its own storage. The same object runs the design's real-time room (who is in it, live cursors, in-flight edits) and keeps a working record of collaborative input (such as comments), so that saves made at the same moment can be merged.
- Where each design is filed and who may open it (its folder, team, share links, Trash, and its Timeline events) is kept by liveworkspace's index, the service every liveworkspace app shares. Your account, settings and teams are kept by liveworkspace's accounts service.
- Images you add are kept by liveworkspace's media service, in Cloudflare R2 object storage, and served back through the same API, which checks who may see them. Location and camera details are stripped from a JPEG before it is stored. A cached picture of each design, used for its thumbnail and live image, is kept in the API's own R2 storage.
Or nowhere but your own machine. A design created in Offline Mode lives only in this browser's IndexedDB. It is never stored by the API, so none of the storage above holds a copy of it, and it stays that way until you choose Sync Design to move it to the cloud.
livedesign runs on Cloudflare. Your design content goes to another company only when you use a feature that needs one:
- Emails about your work go through the email provider. They name the design, and a mention or an assigned action quotes a little of the comment or action (see Email Notifications).
What is stored, and who can read it
A design is owned by an identity. That identity is either a signed-in account or, for guests, a per-browser id kept in your browser's local storage. Only the owner, people holding a valid share link, and the members of the team whose library the design is in can read a design. Opening a design you cannot access returns a plain "not found", so its contents and name are never revealed.
Staying in control
- Guest by default. You can build and share designs without ever creating an account. See working as a guest.
- Keep it in the browser. Offline Mode keeps a design off the server entirely.
- Share on your terms. Add a share password to a design or an expiry to a share link, and revoke links at any time.
- Delete what you own. Deleting a design moves it to the Trash for 30 days, then removes it with its tabs, comments and share links; you can delete it permanently from the Trash sooner. Signed-in users can delete their whole account, which removes their personal designs, folders, images, tokens and preferences straight away (designs in a team library stay with the team).
- Opt out of analytics. The anonymous usage events have a switch in Settings. See What We Collect.
livedesign does not claim end-to-end encryption. Design content is protected by authentication and access controls, not by client-side encryption. Found a way around them? Please report it privately.
Was this article helpful?