Sharing a whole notebook with a team

Sharing an entire notebook is a Pro feature. Sharing individual notes is free for everybody, so if you only need one or two notes in somebody else’s hands, the next lesson is the one you want. Notebook sharing is for a team that will work in the same place over time.

The four roles

Everyone in a notebook holds one of four roles.

• OWNER — the person who created it. Only the owner can add or remove people, change roles, rename or delete the notebook, or set the lock password.
• MANAGER — can edit everything, and can set or clear restrictions on folders and notes. A manager runs the day-to-day of the notebook without being able to change who is in it.
• EDITOR — can read and write.
• VIEWER — can read.

Promoting one trusted person to manager is usually worth doing early. It means the tidying-up does not queue behind you.

Open by default, restricted by exception

Inside a notebook, every folder and note is open to all members. That is deliberate: a shared notebook where each item had to be granted individually would be unusable.

When something genuinely should not be seen by everyone, a folder or a note can be switched to restricted and given a list of who may see it. The owner and any managers are always on that list and cannot be removed from it.

Restrictions cascade. Restrict a folder and everything inside it is restricted too. Inside a restricted folder, a child can only narrow the list further — it can never widen it back out. This is what stops a private folder leaking through a note somebody later files into it.

Three ways in, and what each one does

The notebook sharing panel offers:

• A Notebook link. This is a convenience for people who already have access; it does not grant anything on its own.
• An Anyone with the link public toggle, which only the owner can switch on. Locked notes stay private regardless.
• A person-to-person invite link, created with a role of Editor or Viewer. This link expires after 7 days.

That expiry is the thing to remember. An invite you sent a fortnight ago is dead, and the person will tell you your link is broken when it is simply out of date. Generate a fresh one rather than hunting for a fault.