# Sharing

> Open work to your workspace, invite a person, or send a link anyone can open.

Canonical: https://benchy.world/docs/sharing
Last updated: 2026-10-27

## Three ways to share [#three-ways]

| Way | Who gets in | Works on |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Open to the workspace | Every member, at their role | Projects, and the canvases and docs in them |
| Invite a person | A member, or a guest from outside, as Can edit or Can view (Can post or Can read in a chat) | Projects, chats, canvases, docs |
| Share link | Anyone with the link, to view or to view and download | Projects, folders, files, canvases |

Choose **Share** on any of them to see and change who has access.

## Private or workspace [#private-or-workspace]

In a project's **Share** dialog, **Who can open it** is **Everyone in the workspace** or **Only me and people I invite**. A new project starts open to the workspace; a chat starts private, and so does a project Benchy Desktop pairs from your Mac. See [What stays yours](https://benchy.world/docs/workspaces#your-own-things).

Everything in a project has the project's access, so you never share files inside it one by one. A canvas or doc has the access of the project it's in, plus anyone invited to it; one in My files is yours alone until you invite someone. To keep something narrower, put it in another project or in My files.

## Invite a person [#invite]

In the **Share** dialog, enter an email address and choose **Can edit** or **Can view**. Anyone with Can edit on a project, canvas or doc can invite; only a chat's owner shares the chat. Members get access right away. Anyone else becomes a guest on that one item when they sign in with that address, and while sign-up is invite-only, the invitation is what lets a new address sign up. Only the workspace owner invites people into the workspace itself. Inviting never takes access away. See [Members and guests](https://benchy.world/docs/members-and-guests).

## Share links [#share-links]

A share link opens a project, a folder or a file for anyone who has it, without a Benchy account. Anyone who can edit the project can make one:

- **A project**: in its **Share** dialog, under **Share links**.
- **A folder**: from its row menu, or **Share folder** while you're inside it.
- **A file**: from its row menu, or **Share** in the file viewer.

People are invited to a whole project, never to one folder or file, so those dialogs hold links only. For each link, choose:

- **What the link allows**: **View** shows the files in the browser, saying “Downloads are turned off for this link.” **View and download** adds **Download all** and a download for each file.
- **Expires**: never, or in 1, 7 or 30 days.

Copy the link when it's made: it can't be shown again. A link never allows editing. A project or folder link shows what's in it now, including later files, and a project link includes its [BENCHY.md](https://benchy.world/docs/benchy-md), so keep secrets out of the brief. A file link opens the newest version. The shared page names no person.

A link follows what it opens: renaming or moving within the project keeps it working. Trashing closes it until restored, and moving a file to another project stops it opening from the old project's links. A link also stops when its maker can no longer edit the project, or when someone who can edit turns it off. A project's **Share** dialog lists every link made in it, so you can turn any off in one place.

A canvas has its own read-only share link, which only its owner turns on, and a call link for people who already have access; see [Calls](https://benchy.world/docs/canvases-and-docs#calls). To share a chat, invite people to it.

> **One switch for the whole workspace**
>
> The owner can turn off **Allow share links in this workspace**. Every link in the workspace stops opening, without being deleted, until it's turned back on.

## Starters [#starters]

On a canvas you own, turn on **Allow remix** in the canvas menu, then choose **Copy remix link**. That link offers a copy instead of showing the canvas: whoever opens it signs in and gets their own project with the canvas inside, in their own workspace, with remix off. Yours is untouched. Turning **Allow remix** off stops the link offering anything.

A canvas shared that way works as a **Starter**: a ready-made project to start from. Benchy puts a chosen few forward in a gallery on World; there is nothing to submit. The gallery isn't open yet, so send the remix link yourself.

## Sharing in a chat [#in-chats]

In a chat with other people, what you add to a message (a doc, a skill, an Element or a file) is shared with everyone in the chat, at the version you sent. Before you send, a line says who: “Bea will be able to open this, and anyone added to the chat later.” Anyone in the chat can open it under your message, read only — never the doc itself, a newer version, or anything outside the chat. Pictures you add stay yours.

To share a doc you need to be able to edit it; a skill must be yours, and an Element open to the workspace or your own. Something you can only view can still be used in your own chats, but sending it to a chat with other people is refused. Benchy checks this when you send and every time someone opens it. What someone copies out by hand is beyond any of this.

Open what you added and choose **Stop sharing**, or **Share with the chat** to share it again. A share also closes when you can no longer edit the doc, when it's deleted or archived, and for anyone who leaves the chat. In a chat with other people, Benchy reads only what everyone in it can open. A doc's owner sees under **In chats** in its **Share** dialog who shared it and when (never the chat or its people) and can stop it; once the owner stops it, only the owner can share it again.

Mentioning a person with `@` only lets them know. It never gives them access.

## Stop sharing [#stop-sharing]

Remove a person, or turn off a link, from the **Share** dialog; it takes effect at once. Making a project private removes access for members you haven't invited. Files people already downloaded stay with them.