Working Offline

Atlas is designed to work seamlessly whether you're connected or not. Your projects, documents, and media are always available on your device — write on a plane, in a café with spotty Wi-Fi, or anywhere else. Atlas handles the rest.

Everything Lives on Your Device

Projects, documents, canvases, sketches, and media are stored locally on your device. You never need an internet connection to open, edit, or navigate your work. New documents, edits, and organizational changes are saved locally and sync to iCloud when connectivity returns.

This means you can:

Write and edit any document
Create and organize projects, folders, and canvases
Work with sketches and media files already in your project
Browse version history for your documents
Export your work in any format

All without an internet connection.

Image and Equation Cache

Atlas caches external images to disk so they load instantly — even when you're offline. The same applies to rendered LaTeX equations and other generated thumbnails to increase loading times.

Cached content refreshes automatically after 7 days when you're back online. While offline, cached content continues to be served regardless of age.
The cache uses up to approximately 500 MB of disk space, but will be automatically cleaned up by the system when space is low.
You can clear the cache manually in Settings > Cache if you need to reclaim storage.

Tip

Before going offline, open any documents you plan to work on to ensure their media and equation renders are cached and ready.

Coming Back Online

When you reconnect, Atlas syncs your changes automatically — no manual action needed.

If you edited the same document on multiple devices while offline, Atlas will detect the conflict and walk you through resolution when you open that document next. Each conflict version shows the device name and type where the edit originated, so you can make an informed choice about which changes to keep. See iCloud Sync and Conflicts for the full conflict resolution workflow.

Active syncing is always visible via the floating sync indicator in the Organizer. You can also trigger a manual sync from Settings > iCloud.

Info

A safety snapshot is automatically created before any conflict resolution, so your local content is always protected regardless of which resolution option you choose.

What Does Need a Connection

A few features rely on an internet connection to fetch new content:

Link previews — Fetching title, image, and description metadata for web URLs requires connectivity. Previously fetched previews are cached and available offline.
Web page documents — Web page documents display using a web view, so they need connectivity to load fresh content. Their metadata (title, description, preview image) is stored locally.
iCloud sync — Syncing projects, themes, and export styles requires connectivity to push and pull changes between devices.
Subscription validation — May require periodic connectivity to verify your subscription status.

Tips

Cache before you go — Open documents with external images or equations before going offline to ensure everything is cached.
Check the sync indicator — Use the sync indicator in the Organizer to confirm your latest changes have synced before switching devices.
Export works offline — You can export documents to any format without a connection, so you're never blocked from producing output.