Daimond Daimond Guide

Cross-device sync

Daimond is local-first, so a second device starts empty. Cross-device sync carries your chats and workspace files between your own devices without the server ever reading them.

What travels through the gateway is one encrypted parcel only your devices hold the key to. The key comes from your passphrase and never leaves the browser, so the server stores the parcel and cannot open it. Nothing readable crosses between devices.

Linking a second device

Each device makes its own identity, so typing your passphrase on a new one starts a separate, empty account instead of bringing your existing one across. To use the account you already have, link the new device to it. Three steps.

  1. On the device you already use, open the link dialog

    Click the Link another device button in the top bar. It shows a QR code and a one-time pairing code.

    The Link another device dialog, showing a QR code and a one-time pairing code that expires in about ten minutes.
    Your first device shows a QR and a code.

  2. On the new device, scan the QR, or type the code

    Point the new phone's camera at the QR code: it opens Daimond and fills the code in for you, so you only tap Link this device. No camera? Open Daimond there, choose Have a pairing code?, and type the code. The code shown is only so you can check it matches the first device.

    The Link this device dialog on a phone after scanning, with the pairing code already filled in and a Link this device button.
    After scanning, just tap Link this device.

  3. Unlock with the same passphrase

    The new device now holds your account. Unlock it with the same passphrase you use on your first device (not a new one) and your chats and files appear. A passkey can unlock it faster afterwards, once you add one there.

The passphrase is the same everywhere, but it cannot travel on its own. One account, one passphrase, on every device you link. The passphrase only decrypts a key the device already holds, so a browser that has never been linked has nothing for it to open. If a device asks you to create a passphrase rather than enter one, it is about to start a new account, and only linking it (or importing a backup of the old account into it) will bring the old one over.

What travels

Your chats, your Diamonds and the graph you laid them out in, your mail, your workspace files, the devices on the account, and what you have paused. Any file travels, whatever kind it is: a photograph, a recording, a PDF or a spreadsheet reaches your other devices as text does, up to a gigabyte for one file. So does the Trash, so a deletion and a restore both reach every device.

What syncs is also what is kept in cloud storage, so a workspace can be larger than the device you are reading it on. A file that is not on this device still shows in the tree, marked with a cloud, and comes down when you ask for it. The Workspace sets out the three states a file can be in, how space is freed as the browser fills, and what cloud storage costs.

What it costs

Cross-device sync is part of Pro, the one-time unlock, which stays bought once like the rest of Daimond. Without Pro a device works on its own; with it, your devices stay in step. Pro also turns on cloud storage and Email. The larger file bodies sync carries are kept in cloud storage, paid for from credits, with a free allowance before anything is metered.