How to use Miro offline as a personal tool


Userlevel 3

Hi,

I would like to use Miro not only as a team tool but also as a personal tool to have personal boards of my own mind maps. It becomes a problem when needing to work offline (ex: in the train with bad/no wifi). 

I understand Miro doesn’t work offline on colaborative boards as the timeline of modification would become hard to follow. But for a personal boards not shared, is there a way to work offline? Technicaly, if not shared, it would not be complicated at all, only would require to stock data on local hard drive.


17 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Hi @Tom ROYER! Miro doesn't have an offline mode and doesn't really distinguish between collaborative and personal boards (you can make a board private, but it's still the same type of board).

There's a Wish List idea you can upvote though:

https://community.miro.com/ideas/offline-mode-925

Userlevel 3

Thank you for the answer, I voted but this wish list has been there for years ans hasen’t brought any change on that matter. It is really too bad, FYI I was about to upgrade to consultant but it is not possible for me to not be able to access or work on my boards in the train, or to arrive at a meeting at a client and not be able to show my board cause no wifi connection. 

I feel like Miro must loose a good number of potential clients missing this feature, I don’t understand why.

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@Tom ROYER My guess is that Miro’s current architecture and technical infrastructure makes it difficult, and since Miro’s primary purpose is online collaboration they simply don't prioritize this. That's my 5 cents at least, but it's of course only speculation.

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

I echo @Henrik Ståhl’s comments. From a software development perspective, this has not been a priority in order to grow Miro’s user base. That’s not to say it isn’t important to some users, or that Miro doesn’t care, but their have been more important features to work on.

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

And a note about:

Technicaly, if not shared, it would not be complicated at all, only would require to stock data on local hard drive.

Here are just a few changes that would have to be made:

  • Build in a “checkout” feature, so that no one else could edit the board while the offline user is working on it (or risk clobbering of changes). Yes, the board owner could set the public/team access to view/no access).
  • Rules around who should be able to do this? Board owner? Sounds reasonable - again, build in logic/rules.
  • Build in more logic to determine which tools are unavailable during offline mode, e.g., the export to PDF/image engines are all server-side… inconfinder.com is likely accessed via API from iconfinder.com)
  • Any web-plugins/apps you have installed are not going to work, unless Miro owned, and they add more logic/code to allow for downloading to a local machine.
  • More code added all throughout their architecture to change all sorts of other behaviours.

It is rather complicated.

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@Robert Johnson When people say “it shouldn't be complicated,” it usually means it's complicated as hell… 😂

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

@Henrik Ståhl - all I gotta say is:

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Sorry, @Tom ROYER - your post has brought out the Star Trek nerds in us. Although, I'm not a fan.

Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Just kidding. 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

@Robert Johnson @Kiron Bondale Honestly though, I'm not a trekkie. I mean, I like some of the series (like STD), but I'm much more of a Star Wars nerd.

Having said that, I still couldn't help myself when I stumbled upon this Kickstarter project and suddenly I was an early bird backer… 😂

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiburnd5/tiburn-d5-usb-flash-drives-star-trek-discovery-badge-series

Userlevel 1

I agree that it’s a really important feature that feels like (the only?) massive downside to Miro.  I use it all the time to facilitate sessions and then need to be able to work on the boards to pull together reports.  Time on trains would be ideal for this, but the wifi isn’t always up to it.  Even if I could make a personal copy of a board to use offline this would be better than nothing!

I’m on a train now and although on the wifi it’s taken me nearly 20 minutes to get my boards to load and be able to login to this forum!

This has to be updated and implemented. If nothing else, make it where I can share a board to something like Google keep and sync it later when I'm back online.

Userlevel 1

I get that Miro is a collaboration tool but sometimes collabs and meetings need some prep time. 
Have you researched how much time people spend preparing work for the team while commuting?

If you don’t see the value in offering offline boards then it’s best to support the transfer of work done on other apps like Apple Notes.

For me the Offline feature is an absolute must. I would be a heavy Miro user if the offline option was available. I think this is a very widespread demand from Miro users and by not listening to it the company is losing many clients, not just be but also many colleagues I know. 

Userlevel 3

HAhaha the Nerd part was very fun though. But yea it seems I am not the only one missing such a feature … too bad really, it is holding me back from really recommanding Miro in each of my jobs

I understand offline mode will be very challenging from an implementation POV. Just thinking of the UX related to the merge feature makes me cringe, especially considering the tool is not designed for a technical audience. However, if they just allowed a board to be READ offline, that would be simple and would allow people to use/read the content when internet is not available (flights, travel, etc.). This would be a huge UX improvement. Today we just have to export everything to PDFs and it’s a messy and annoying process. 

This would helps SOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!!!

As a professor, I make a ton of boards before class that no one will see or use until the first day of class. Being able to work on these boards over break, while traveling, camping etc would greatly extend my ability to use Miro as a collaborative tool - it’s main purpose.   Please remember, not all collaboration is the same, and their are many structures and hierarchies for collaboration.

Please consider a stand alone app that is meant for miro board prep - and one could copy content from a local drive into the main app or similar functionality!

 

Dan

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