Save and open cloud designs

Save a design to the cloud when you want it in your Boldbobbin account: you can reopen it on another computer or in the browser, and Boldbobbin keeps saving your changes as you work. You need to be signed in (a free account is enough). Designs you only keep on your computer stay as .vemb files and need no account.

This page is about your own designs. On a Business or Max plan you also get a shared team library with version history, which is where saving, versions, and conflicts work differently: see Work in a team library.

Save to the cloud

1. Sign in (see Signing in).
2. Press Save (Ctrl/Cmd+S) or the header Save button.
3. On the web, this always saves to your account. While you are signed in, even a brand-new design starts saving to the cloud from your first edit, before you press Save. On desktop, the first save opens a Save this design dialog asking Save to Cloud or Save to this computer; later saves reuse whichever you picked, silently.

Save this design

Where should this design live?

Reproduction of the desktop save-destination chooser. Shown once per design, on its first save; later saves reuse your pick.

While the save is in flight a "Saving…" toast shows; a successful save shows "Saved to cloud." The design now appears in My designs.

Example: start at the shop, finish at home

You start a name patch on the desktop app at your shop and want to finish it on your laptop at home.

1. At the shop, press Ctrl/Cmd+S and pick Save to Cloud in the Save this design dialog.
2. Keep working. The header chip reads Saved to cloud a few seconds after you stop editing, so there is nothing more to press.
3. At home, sign in with the same account, click Browse Cloud on the home screen, and Open the design.

If you press Save while signed out, the sign-in dialog appears with a Save without signing in option underneath. Choose it to save a local .vemb file instead, without an account.

Where it is saved

New in v1.3.0: with at least one team library available, New design asks first whether it belongs to you or to a team, and the first-save prompt carries a Save to choice. With no team there is no question, and everything on this page is what happens.

Explicit destinations

To put a design somewhere other than its usual place, use File → Save as (on the web, the two are listed directly in File). It always offers both destinations:

• Save on cloud: saves to your account regardless of what Save normally does for this design. Handy for pushing a desktop design that's only been saved locally up to the cloud too.
• Save to this computer (.vemb)… (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+S, "Download (.vemb)" on web): writes a .vemb file to your computer.

Once a design is in the cloud, Boldbobbin keeps saving your changes to it as you work, on both web and desktop: see Autosave below.

Open a cloud design

Open the My designs list from the home screen's Browse Cloud, or from the Home page's Cloud Designs grid, where each card shows a preview thumbnail of the design. Click a card to open it. In the My designs list, each row has Open and Delete. With a team library in view, this page grows library tabs and the home screen grows a library picker; Personal lists only your own designs. Deleting asks to confirm ("Delete '…'? This cannot be undone.") and can't be undone.

Duplicate or delete from the home screen

Each of your own cards on the home screen has a ⋯ (More actions) menu, which replaced the trash icon in v1.3.1:

• Duplicate makes a separate cloud copy named "title (copy)", with its preview, at the top of the grid: "Duplicated as “Autumn crest (copy)”". The copy counts toward your cloud design limit, so on Free it can hit the cap like any other save.
• Delete asks to confirm, as before.

The menu is on personal cards only: a team design's card keeps its bin.

Cloud design limits

The Free plan limits how many designs you can keep in the cloud; local saves are unlimited. See Plans and credits and Can't save to the cloud.

Sharing a design

To send a design to someone rather than keep it, publish it to the community gallery: you get a public link, and a visitor can turn it into a machine file in their browser. It works from the version stored in your cloud, so save it there first. See Publish a design.

When a design is read-only

Some designs open for reading only, and as of v1.3.0 every panel says which reason applies rather than just refusing the edit:

• A shared design, opened from someone else's link. Save a copy of your own if you want to change it.
• An older version of a team design. Restore it, or go back to the current version. See Versions.

Autosave

Boldbobbin protects your work in the background, in one of two ways depending on whether the design is already in the cloud:

• Before any save: a local backup for recovering unsaved work if Boldbobbin closes unexpectedly. It doesn't touch a saved file (see Where are my designs stored?).
• After a design is saved to the cloud: Boldbobbin keeps saving your changes to the cloud as you work, on both web and desktop, so you rarely need to press Save again for that design.

The save chip

A chip beside the design's name in the header says where your edits are. As of v1.3.2 it reads:

Chip	Means
Saving to cloud… / Saved to cloud	A cloud design: your changes go to the cloud a few seconds after you stop editing.
Not saved to cloud	The last save to the cloud failed. Hover the chip to see why, then press Save to try again.
Unsaved changes	A design that is not in the cloud, changed since its last save. Press Save to keep the changes; until then, a backup on this computer can bring them back if the app closes.
Backup failed	That local backup could not be written. Save now.

It replaces the old Autosave chip and its "Autosave failed" message.

A cloud design also keeps its preview up to date on the home screen and in My designs, so when you leave the editor its card shows what you last worked on. The first save to the cloud doesn't reload the design: your selection, the mode you were in, and anything you changed while it uploaded all stay put.