Accounts, sharing, and real-time collaboration
Sign in to take your models online. Share them with the people you choose, plan your tables together in real time, and restore an earlier version whenever you need it.
Signing in
Choose Continue with Google, or have us email you a six-digit code. There's no password to remember. Continue with Google opens in a pop-up window, so you never lose your place in the app. It works with Gmail and Google Workspace addresses. For any other address, use an emailed code. Either way, you sign in to the same account, because your account is your email address. We don't keep anything else from Google. Each code works only once and expires after ten minutes. You get five tries to enter it. You stay signed in for 30 days after you last use Maowl, or until you sign out.
Saving a model online
To save a model to your account, open My models and drag it from On this device to Online, or straight onto one of your folders. You can also choose Save online from the model's ⋯ menu, or click Share in the top bar and choose Save online. Once the model is online, your changes are saved automatically as you work, and you can open it wherever you sign in. While it's open, the top bar shows its status: Saved online, Saving…, or Offline.
Sharing
Share an online model by email address, and choose Can edit or Can view for each person. Up to two people besides you can edit a model, and anyone else you invite can view it. On a Team plan, every teammate you invite can edit a team model, and so can up to two people outside the team. Click the email field to pick someone you've shared another model with, or start typing their address. Everyone you invite gets an email with a link. It works only if they sign in with that exact address, so a forwarded invitation won't let anyone else in. People who can only view see the model with a “VIEW ONLY” banner and can't change or select anything. As the owner, you can change or remove anyone's access. If someone has shared a model with you, you can leave it from its ⋯ menu in My models.
To hand a model over to someone it's shared with, open Share and choose Make owner from their access menu. They'll need to sign in to Maowl first. You'll keep access as an editor.
Editing together
Everyone who has the model open sees changes the moment they're made. The top bar shows who's there, and you can see what each person has selected, highlighted in their color, and where their pointer is. If two people change the same thing at once, such as a table's name, the last change to reach the server wins. Changes to different things are both kept, like one person moving a table while another renames it. Undo reverses only your own changes. If you lose your connection, keep working: we'll send your changes when you're back online.
Version history
For an online model, File › Version history… lists the current version and every saved version, showing when each was saved and who changed it. On the Free plan, the list goes back 7 days. Select a version to preview it and see how many tables, foreign keys, and notes it has. We save versions automatically: after five minutes without changes, at least every 30 minutes while you keep working, and before and after every change an AI assistant makes. We keep every version from the last 24 hours, then the last one of each day for 30 days, then the last one of each week, up to 100 in total. If you can edit the model, Restore this version makes it match that version exactly. Everyone with the model open sees the change, and you can undo it like any other.
Folders
To organize your online models, click New folder next to the Online heading in My models. Then drag a model onto the folder, or choose Move to folder from the model's ⋯ menu. Your folders are visible only to you. You can file any model you can open, including ones shared with you. A folder can't contain other folders, and a model can be in only one of your folders. Deleting a folder never deletes the models in it.
Deleting and restoring
When you delete an online model you own, it disappears for everyone you've shared it with. It moves to Recently deleted, at the bottom of the Online section in My models. You have 30 days to restore it, and it comes back with its version history and sharing, filed where it was before. To remove it sooner, choose Delete forever. After 30 days, it's gone for good.
Deleting your account (Account › Delete account…) also deletes every online model you own, and everyone you've shared them with loses access. Team models are the exception: they move to your team's manager. Before you confirm, you'll see which of your models are shared with other people.
Where online models are stored and who can read them
Online models are stored within the EU and encrypted in transit and at rest. We back them up automatically a few minutes after you stop editing. Only you and the people you share a model with can open it. On a Team plan, so can your team's manager. Like most collaboration tools, Maowl protects online models with access control rather than end-to-end encryption, so we can technically read them. We don't, unless you ask us to, a report of illegal content makes it necessary, or the law requires it. For details, see our Privacy Policy and our security page.