# Wander Cloud

Wander works with no account at all. Your notes are files in your folder, and if you want them on another device, any folder that syncs already does the job: see [[Sync]]. Nothing in this page is required to use Wander.

Wander Cloud is the optional half. Sign in, turn it on for a vault, and the layers on top of your files travel by themselves, plus you get the same vault in a browser and a real address for whatever you choose to publish.

It is off until you turn it on. Signing in on its own syncs nothing.

## Do you need it?

Probably not. If you want your notes on your other devices, iCloud Drive or Dropbox already does that, for free, and Wander works with it.

Wander Cloud is for what a folder that syncs cannot do:

- your vault on the web, in the same editor
- pages you publish, at their own address
- sharing a vault with people, to read or edit
- agents like ChatGPT and Claude reading and writing through MCP
- the full history on every device

You can use both: keep the vault in iCloud Drive and turn Wander Cloud on for it.

## What it gives you

- History, comments and ink on every device, without waiting for a folder to sync.
- The whole history kept. This Mac folds and prunes fine-grained edits after a month; the cloud keeps them all, so a timeline stays deep.
- The same vault in a browser at wander.md/you, in the same editor.
- Pages you publish, at their own address: wander.md/you/notes/House Rules.md
- A door agents can read and write through, when you give one a token.

## Your files do not move

The folder on your disk stays the truth. Wander edits the same files it always did, and your own sync (iCloud Drive, Dropbox, a git repo) keeps doing whatever it was doing. The cloud is a copy that travels, not a new home, and turning it off leaves your folder exactly as it is.

## What travels

For a vault you turned the cloud on for:

- the notes and attachments in it
- its history: every version, the change that made it, which device wrote it
- comments and ink
- the small state files in `.wander`: block ids, tags, favourites, folder styles
- a name for this device, so the timeline reads "Anton's MacBook Pro" and not an id. It starts as the computer's name and you can change it
- a record of each sync: how long it took, how much moved, whether it worked. Counts, durations and which note's save started it, never a line of your text

The state parts have their own switches in the same settings. Notes, history, comments and comment anchors always sync, because they are the point.

For a vault you left off: nothing.

## Wander can read what you sync

There is no end-to-end encryption. Our server reads the notes you sync, because that is how it renders them in a browser, searches them, shows a diff, and serves a page you published.

If a vault should never be readable by anyone but you, leave the cloud off for it. That is a real answer and not a lesser one: everything in the app works without an account, and vaults are an individual choice, so one vault can sync while another never leaves the Mac.

## Turning it on

1. Sign in with Apple, once for the app: Settings ▸ Cloud on a Mac, Settings ▸ Sync ▸ Cloud on an iPhone or iPad.
2. Pick your username. It is your address: wander.md/yourname.
3. Open the vault you want and set Sync to Wander Cloud: from Vault at the bottom right of the window ▸ Settings… on a Mac, or by tapping the note count at the bottom of the screen on an iPhone and the sidebar's count on an iPad.

Repeat step 3 for each vault you want synced. The badge shows where the vault stands, and clicking it lists the recent rounds and offers Sync Now.

On an iPhone or iPad, Wander syncs while it is open. A vault in iCloud Drive still gets the files through iCloud when Wander is closed; the history, comments and the web copy catch up the next time you open it.

## On a new Mac, iPhone or iPad

Your vaults are on your account, so a new device can have them back. Choose Open from Wander Cloud…: on a Mac in the welcome window or File ▸ Open from Wander Cloud…, on an iPhone or iPad on the start screen. Signed out, it asks you to sign in first.

The list shows every vault on your account. One that is already on this device says Open. For any other, Get copies it into a new folder here and keeps it in sync: on a Mac you choose where the folder goes, on an iPhone or iPad it goes in Wander's folder in the Files app. A name already taken gets a number, like "website 2". Get only fills an empty folder, so it never mixes the cloud's notes into ones you already have.

## With iCloud Drive or Dropbox

A vault can sync through its folder and through Wander Cloud at once, and most do. The same note arriving both ways is one change, not two. A few things work differently in such a folder, on purpose:

- A note iCloud has not downloaded to this iPhone yet is left exactly as it is. It is never treated as deleted.
- When you delete a note on another device, Wander waits for iCloud or Dropbox to remove it here, and only removes it itself if that has not happened after a couple of minutes.
- If a great many notes seem to vanish at once, Wander waits ten minutes before it believes it. A folder that looks empty for a moment never empties your other devices.

## Publishing

A synced vault is private. Private means anyone else asking for it is told there is nothing there, and search engines are kept out.

Making a file, a folder or a vault public is publishing, and there is no separate publish step: the moment something is public, its address serves it to whoever visits. Take it back the same way.

## Turning it off

Set that vault's Sync back to This device only, or to your folder. The server copy is scheduled for deletion and goes about 30 days later. Turn it back on inside that window and everything is there again.

Your files and your `.wander` folder are untouched by any of this.

## Taking a copy out

Settings ▸ Cloud ▸ Export Everything saves every synced vault as one zip: the notes and attachments exactly as they sync, folders and all. One vault on its own from its settings page on wander.md. You never have to ask for it.

## Deleting the account

Settings ▸ Cloud ▸ Delete Account, and type your username to confirm. The same button is on your account page at wander.md.

It takes all of it: your sign-in, your devices, every synced vault, their history, and the username. Published pages stop resolving as soon as you ask, not 30 days later, and your email and name are erased in the same moment. Everything else is held for 30 days so a mistake is recoverable, then it is gone for good. Your username is held for those 30 days too, so nobody can take it while you think.

Export first if you want a copy. The folders on your Mac are yours and stay exactly as they are.

## Free and Pro

Public vaults are free, as many as you like, with their whole history and their pages on wander.md. Anything you publish stays free.

Private vaults, sharing a private vault with people by username, and agent tokens come with Wander Cloud Pro, a subscription in the app, monthly or yearly, with two weeks free to start. People you invite need no subscription. Manage or cancel it in your Apple ID settings; Settings ▸ Cloud ▸ Account shows your plan and the way there.

If Pro ends, your private vaults keep syncing for 30 days, then become read-only. Nothing is ever deleted for that. Subscribing again, or making a vault public, lifts it.

There is no storage quota to watch: every kind of file is welcome under the normal use of a notes app.

Next: [[Sync]] · [[History]] · [[Files & Folders]]