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Everything here assumes one person's laptop is hosting the board and everyone else is joining from the same room. That is the setup OrgKit is built around.

Hosting a board

Open OrgKit and make a folder, then a board inside it. That is it. The app starts its own local server the moment it opens, so nothing needs configuring and nothing needs to be online.

The app shows you the address other people should type. It looks like one of these:

http://orgkit.local:3883
http://192.168.1.47:3883

The first works when the network supports local name discovery, which most home and cafe routers do. The second always works. If people are having trouble, read out the numeric one.

Joining from another device

Anyone on the same Wi-Fi opens that address in a normal browser: phone, tablet, someone else's laptop. There is nothing to install and no account to make. They get the same board, live, and their edits show up on everyone else's screen as they type.

Two things to know:

• Same network. Phones on cellular data cannot reach the board, and neither can anyone at home. Everyone joins the same Wi-Fi first. A router with no internet uplink at all is fine.
• Guest Wi-Fi often won't work. Many networks isolate clients from each other so devices can't see one another. That blocks OrgKit along with everything else. If a venue's guest network is isolating, a phone hotspot that everyone joins works well.

When the firewall blocks it

If you can see your board but nobody else can, the host machine's firewall is almost certainly refusing the incoming connections.

macOS. System Settings → Network → Firewall → Options. Find OrgKit and set it to allow incoming connections. If it isn't listed, add it with the + button.

Windows. Windows Security → Firewall & network protection → Allow an app through firewall. Find OrgKit, and tick the Private column. Leave Public unticked.

Linux. Nothing prompts you, so this is the one to check by hand. Most desktop installs have no inbound firewall running and nothing needs doing.

Fedora, RHEL and openSUSE ship firewalld, active, with inbound traffic denied:

sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3883/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=8080/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Add --permanent --add-service=mdns as well if you want the orgkit.local name to work. The numeric address does not need it.

Ubuntu and Debian ship ufw, usually inactive. If yours is active:

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.0.0/16 to any port 3883
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.0.0/16 to any port 8080

Adjust the range to match your network. Both ports are needed: 3883 serves the app, 8080 carries live edits. If people can load the board but nothing updates as others type, 8080 is the one being blocked.

Where your data lives

Boards, uploaded images and video all live in a single directory on the host machine:

macOS     ~/Library/Application Support/it.orgk.desktop/
Windows   %APPDATA%\it.orgk.desktop\
Linux     ~/.local/share/it.orgk.desktop/

Nothing is stored anywhere else, and nothing is stored on anyone else's device except a browser cache. On Linux the AppImage makes no difference to this: it keeps its data in that directory like any other install, so moving or deleting the AppImage leaves your boards where they are.

Backing up

Two routes, and they do different jobs.

The copy that restores. Quit OrgKit, then copy that directory somewhere: an external drive, another machine, an encrypted volume. Restoring is copying it back. There is no export step and no proprietary format in the way.

The copy you can read. The app backs itself up from the chip in the top right, on the folders screen and on any board. It shows when you last ran one. Open it, choose Markdown or JSON, and press Back up everything. The app asks where to put the files, then writes one directory per folder: the board as a single file, with any images and video copied in beside it.

Set a reminder in the same panel and the chip starts marking itself due: hourly, every four hours, or daily. That is all the reminder does. Nothing is ever written without you picking the destination first, so the app cannot back itself up while nobody is watching.

The readable copy is for taking a board somewhere else, not for putting one back. There is no import. If a board has to return to OrgKit, it returns from the copied directory.

Because it is a plain directory on disk, it is worth thinking about who has access to the host machine. A board about tenants or members is exactly as private as the laptop it sits on, so disk encryption on that laptop is the single most useful precaution you can take.

Two people editing at once

Expected, and handled. Edits merge rather than overwriting each other, so two people typing in the same note both get their text. There is no locking, no "someone else is editing this" dialog, and no save button.

If a device drops off the network mid-meeting, it keeps working on what it has and syncs back up when it reconnects.

Still stuck?

Email support@orgk.it. Say which system you are on, what you expected, and what happened instead.