Pangur docsWorking offline
Pangur keeps a copy of your library on each device so that you can read and make changes without a connection. This page explains what the web, the Mac and the iPhone and iPad app keep, how queued changes are sent, and how conflicts are settled.
Pangur keeps enough of your library on each device to go on working when the connection drops. You can open the library, read files you have opened before, and add or change items, notes, collections and highlights. The changes wait on the device and send themselves once Pangur can be reached again. Work that needs Pangur's server, such as Ask, analysis, citations and publishing, waits for the connection.
How much is kept differs between the web app and the iPhone and iPad app. Pangur for Mac shows the web app, so it works offline exactly as the web app does in a browser.
On the web and on the Mac
What the browser keeps
The browser keeps the app's own files and the pages you have opened, so a page you opened once while online opens again offline. Once a project's library copy is up to date, the browser also keeps the project's main screens and the reader, which means they open offline even if you have not visited them before.
It also keeps a copy of each project's library (its items, collections, notes and highlights), separately for each account and project. This copy is brought up to date when you open the library, when the connection returns, when you come back to the tab, and every five minutes in between. Finally, the browser keeps the 60 files you opened most recently, so they open again offline.
Anyone who has signed in on the browser before can open the app offline.
What you can do offline
When Pangur cannot be reached, the library shows "Offline. Showing the copy in this browser." with Retry. You can browse and search the library copy, open kept files, and make changes: add, edit and delete items and notes; add, rename, move and delete collections and file items in them; and add, change and remove highlights.
Each change is held in the browser in a queue, and the library tells you how many are waiting to be sent. When the connection returns, the browser sends them in order, checking every 15 seconds while changes are waiting. Only one tab sends them at a time.
In an organisation project where you have the viewer role, changes are not queued, because the server would refuse them anyway.
What needs a connection
Only the library, the reader's files and highlights use the browser's copy. The other workspaces, including Ask, Analyse, Plan, Write's desk, Research, Publish, Settings and the account pages, fetch their data from Pangur's server each time. Their pages may open offline, but their contents will not load and their changes will not save.
Writing in Write is the one exception. If a save fails, Write holds the unsent text in the browser, marked "Saved on this device · waiting to sync", and sends it when the browser is back online (saving and conflicts in Write).
If your device is online but the server cannot be reached, Pangur says "Cannot connect. Check your connection and try again."
On iPhone and iPad
The iPhone and iPad app keeps more on the device than a browser does, and it lets you choose items to keep in full.
The library on the device
The app keeps the items, collections, notes and highlights of every project you have, so the Library works with no connection at all. On mobile data, only the project you are in is brought up to date. This copy is kept for you automatically; you do not choose what goes into it.
Keeping items offline
Keeping an item offline stores its record, notes, files, highlights and readable text on the device, so that you can read and annotate it with no connection. To keep one item, choose Keep offline in the item's More menu. To keep a whole collection, hold the collection and choose to keep it.
Kept items appear under On this device in the Library. Each file can be up to 200 MB. While the app is open, it refreshes kept items whenever Pangur can be reached, but at most every six hours. With Download on Wi-Fi only switched on, the app waits for Wi-Fi before downloading and says so.
Remove from this device removes one kept item, and Remove everything kept… removes all of them. The second warns you that any changes waiting to be sent are removed too and will not reach your library. Removing an item from the device does not remove it from your library.
Recently opened files
Apart from kept items, the app keeps files you have opened so that they open again with no connection. Keep up to in Settings ▸ Offline sets how much space they may use, 2 GB by default. Past that size, the files you opened longest ago are removed first. Kept items are never removed this way, and recently opened files stay on the device when you sign out.
Sections that need a connection
Capture, Library and Settings work offline. Ask, Write, Analyse, Research and Publish need a connection, and offline they say so, remind you that items kept on the device are in Library, and offer Try again, although Pangur also reconnects by itself.
In Capture, you can still photograph onto destinations you used before, since the app shows the destinations from your last visit; only a new reference needs a connection. The photographs wait in the upload queue and are sent when the phone is online. Things you share from other apps while offline are kept and sent the next time the app is open and online (sharing while offline).
If you open the app offline with an account already signed in, it opens as that account.
Changes made on the device
Changes you make offline wait in a queue on the device. Changes on this device, under Settings ▸ Offline, lists them, and the Library tells you when one is waiting. The app sends them as soon as Pangur can be reached.
Signing out removes the account's library copy from the device but keeps changes that have not been sent, and sends them when the same account signs in again.
When the same thing changed in two places
Each queued change records the version of the item it was based on. If the item has not changed on the server since, the change simply applies. If someone else, or you on another device, changed the same item in the meantime, Pangur's server merges the two where they touched different fields. Where they cannot be merged, the change is held as a conflict, and the device says "Also changed in your library. Choose which to keep." You then choose:
| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| Keep mine | Your change replaces the library's. |
| Use the library's | Your change is dropped and the library's version stays. |
| Keep both | For a note, both versions are kept. |
| Delete anyway | For something you deleted that was changed elsewhere, it is deleted. |
| Keep it | For the same case, the deletion is dropped and the changed version stays. |
If the library refuses a change outright, the device says "Your library did not take this change." and shows it until you choose Dismiss.
Share to Pangur from other apps
The share sheet sends PDFs, documents, recordings, photographs and web pages from other iPhone and iPad apps into a Pangur project. This page explains what it accepts, how it identifies what you share, and how it signs in.
Assistants and Pangur
An assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT can be connected to your Pangur library. This page explains what a connected assistant can and cannot do, which project it works in, and who pays for the model it uses.