Choose who can open a share
Set an expiry, a password, a view cap or Google sign-in on a share, and revoke or delete it when you are done.
A share starts as a public link, but you decide how long it lives, whether it needs a password, how many times it opens and who has to sign in. You set all of this on the share in Shares.
Set the link options#
Expiration: pick from "Never," 1 hour, 1 day, 7 days, or 30 days. After the deadline the link returns a "this share has expired" page.
Password: require a password to view the share. Set it inline from the detail pane and visitors get a password prompt before the content loads. The password is hashed in your machine before it ever leaves Yardmaster: the plaintext is never sent across the wire or stored anywhere. You can change it or remove it at any time.
View cap: limit how many times the link can be opened. Once the count hits the cap, the link returns a "view cap reached" page. The detail pane also shows the current view count so you can pick a sensible cap.
Notify on view: turn on per-share to get a desktop notification ("Share viewed: <label>") whenever someone opens the link. Useful for "I want to know when this person reads it" workflows.
Revoke: you can invalidate a link at any time from the Shares view in the sidebar. The URL keeps returning the "revoked" page until you also delete it.
Delete: permanently removes the share and the underlying file from storage.
Let in only people from your organization#
Sometimes a link should only open for people at your company or school. Google sign-in access does that. When you turn it on, a visitor has to sign in with Google first.
They get in if they use a Google Workspace account whose email address is on a domain you listed (an exact match), like nimbusworks.com. You can also name people one by one, for example a guest who is not at your company, and they can sign in with the Google account for that address, including a personal Gmail.
Open Shares in the left sidebar and pick the share.
In the Access section, choose Google sign-in.
Type the domains that are allowed, separated by commas or spaces. You can list up to 20.
To let in particular people, type their email addresses in the People list, one per line or separated by commas. You can list up to 100. You can use domains, people, or both, but you need at least one of them.
Click Save. The change takes effect right away.
The other two choices are still there: Anyone with the link (the usual way) and Password. A share uses one of the three at a time, so choosing Google sign-in removes a password, and the other way around.
What do the people you share with see?#
A sign-in page that shows the page title and who can sign in (the allowed domains, and that invited people can sign in too). It never shows the list of invited email addresses. They click the Google button to sign in in a small pop-up window.
If their account is on an allowed domain, or their email address is on your People list, the page opens. An invited person can use any Google account with that address, including a personal Gmail.
Once they are in, a small note at the bottom says Signed in as their email, with a Sign out link.
If their account is not allowed, they see You do not have access.
Signing in once lasts 72 hours, and it carries across: the same person can open any other Google sign-in share that lets their account in without signing in again. Each share still checks its own list every time, so taking a domain or a person off a share locks them out of it straight away.
Sign out signs them out of that share and ends the 72-hour sign-in for every other share on that browser too. The sign-in page then says so.
Only the exact domain you type counts. If you list
nimbusworks.com, an address ending insub.nimbusworks.comis not let in. Add it as its own domain if you want it.Invited email addresses also have to match exactly.
pat.lee@gmail.comandpatlee@gmail.comcount as two different people, so type the address the person actually signs in with.Your own preview inside Yardmaster is not affected. You never have to sign in to look at your own share.
Link previews in chat apps only say Sign-in required, and these shares cannot be embedded in other websites, so the Copy embed code button is hidden.
Changing the access setting signs everyone out, so people sign in again under the new rules.
Comments on these shares are limited to signed-in people on the allowed domains, and you can always comment on your own.
Pages that use different sign-in rules cannot be combined. Yardmaster tells you, and nothing changes.
Changing the access of a series changes every page in it too, so a page you later take out of the series keeps the same rule.
An AI helper using Yardmaster can make a share more private, but it cannot let more people in. Widening who can open a share is always done by you in the Shares panel.
Using AI with a Google sign-in Share#
An AI tool cannot open a Google sign-in Share by itself, because it cannot sign in. If you are allowed to open the page, you can bring your AI along in two ways. Open the Reader menu (the small book button on the page) and pick one.
Copy for AI copies the text of the page. Paste it into any AI chat. If part of the page could not be turned into text, such as a picture or an interactive part, the message says so.
Create AI link makes a web address your AI can read. Click Create and copy link, then paste it into an AI tool that can open web pages. Give your AI the AI link, not the page address: the page address only leads to the Google sign-in screen, which an AI cannot get past.
An AI link works for one hour, then stops. Anyone who has the link can read that page until it stops, so do not paste it somewhere other people can see.
The person who shared the page can see that you made a link: your email address, when you made it, and how many times it was opened.
The link stops straight away if the owner turns AI reading off, takes you off the list, or turns the share off. If you are taken off the list and added back later, your old link stays stopped. Make a new one.
Text only. Pictures, video, scanned pages with no text, and what a game or tool does are not included.
What an AI company keeps after it has read something is up to that company. Yardmaster cannot take it back.
If you own the share, AI reading of Shares is on for every Google sign-in share, including ones you made earlier. In the Access section you will find an Allow AI reading switch. Turn it off and nobody can copy the text or make a link for that share, and every link already made stops.
Below the switch is a list of the links people made, with a Cancel button on each. An AI helper using Yardmaster can turn the switch off for you, but turning it back on is always your decision.
For what an open tab does when you revoke, expire or lock a share, see Update a share without changing its link. To publish something first, see Share a file or page as a link.
Related
- Find and manage your sharesThe Shares panel lists every link you have published, with a live preview and controls to edit, protect, revoke, delete or republish each one.
- See and remove your stored keysStored Keys lists every API key and secret Yardmaster keeps on this computer, by name only, so you can find, replace or delete them without ever showing a value.
- Share a conversation as a linkTurn an AI session, one message or a highlighted part into a read-only web page anyone can open.