Sketch

Sketch is the flowss whiteboard: a hand-drawn canvas for thinking with a pen, running workshops and wireframing screens, with a direct path from rough ink to a clean diagram. You draw with pens, shapes, sticky notes and stamps; arrows stay attached to the shapes they connect; frames turn regions of the board into slides; a library drops in over a hundred ready-made workshop canvases and 111 wireframe pieces. When the drawing has structure, Sketch can tidy it in place, read it into Mermaid, D2, Graphviz, PlantUML or DBML without any AI, or ask the flowss Sketch Agent to convert it into any of 19 diagram engines and open it in the right studio. Facilitation tools (timer, dot voting, estimation, reactions), an outcome document, comments and live sessions make it a workshop room as well as a drawing pad. You open it at /sketch. This page is a complete reference for every tool, panel, menu and shortcut.

At a glance

Plans and what each includes

Enterprise includes everything in the Ultra column. Free Sketch is the core canvas; the workflow layer (the full wireframe kit, presenting, checkpoints, big component shelves) starts on Starter. When you reach for a gated feature, a message says what unlocks it, for example "Presentation mode (frames as slides) is part of Starter. Your frames and canvas stay fully editable on Free." See Plans and what they include, AI points and limits and Bring your own AI key.

The screen

Sketch uses the flowss islands layout: the board fills the window and controls float over it. See A tour of the workspace for the layout shared by every studio.

An empty board shows Sketch anything with "Draw, drop in a template, or describe a board below.", an Open library button, a Load the demo board link, and six quick-start canvases: Kanban board, SWOT, Retro board, Customer journey, Crazy 8s and Flowchart kit.

The status badge beside the title shows the save state, the number of objects, the Check findings (once the board has been checked) and the board's readiness, written as "Ink · Empty", "Ink · Draft", "Ink · Sound", "Ink · Reviewed" or "Ink · Publishable". Its popover (⇧⌘M) has a Board section explaining the readiness level and what is holding it back, and a Check section with Check this board.

Boards

Sketch keeps your work as boards. Each board is also a document in your Library.

Switching, creating and naming boards

1. Click ▾ beside the title to open the board switcher. It lists your boards (the open one is ticked), offers New board at the foot, and has duplicate and delete actions on each row. A Find a board search box appears once you have more than seven boards. On Free its header shows "N of 3 boards" with a See plans link, and New and Duplicate are disabled at the cap.
2. Click a row to open that board. ⌥⌘← and ⌥⌘→ (Alt+Ctrl+arrow) step to the previous or next board when you have more than one; ⌘K Switch board cycles through them.
3. New board (⋮ menu or switcher) starts an empty board: "New board — untitled until you label a frame or rename the tab".

A board names itself from what you draw until you name it: the first frame you have labelled, otherwise the first line of the first text, otherwise the first line of the first sticky note, otherwise "Untitled sketch". Click the title to name it yourself (up to 80 characters); from then on your name is kept.

Duplicate makes a copy; the toast "Duplicated as “…”" has an Open button. Delete is offered when you have more than one board (the last board cannot be deleted). Your browser asks "Delete “…”? This cannot be undone." first; despite that wording, the toast that follows ("Deleted “…”") offers Undo.

Saving

Boards save automatically to your browser about half a second after each change, and again when you leave the page. If a save is refused, the status badge turns red and tells you why:

A board open in two browser tabs follows the other tab's changes rather than overwriting them. For devices, see Cloud sync, offline work and devices.

The ⋮ file menu

Every document verb lives in the ⋮ menu beside the title, in the same order every flowss studio uses. Each row is also a ⌘K command with the same name.

Everything else is in ⌘K too, including Find on board, Select all, Select same kind, Tidy selection into a grid, Match width, Match height, the rotate, flip and connector-route verbs, Toggle minimap, Frames navigator, Toggle snapping, Toggle straighten on hold, Facilitate a session, End session and write the outcome, Show comments and the live-session verbs.

The demo board and clearing a board

⋮ › Load the demo board opens a new four-frame board that shows off wireframes, binding arrows, groups, a locked backdrop, sticky notes and frames laid out as slides. It counts as a new board.

Warning: Clearing a board deletes its comment threads permanently. Undo brings the drawing back but not the comments.

⋮ › Clear canvas needs two presses. The first arms it and tells you what will happen ("Run Clear again to wipe this board — Undo can bring the drawing back", or a warning that comment threads will be gone for good). Press again within four seconds to clear. Undo restores the drawing, but not deleted comment threads.

Drawing tools

Each rail button stands for a family and wears the member you used last, so the tool you reach for again is one click away. Picking Pen, Shapes, Sticky note or Stamp opens its options beside the rail; your first stroke puts them away, and clicking the button again reopens them. The Eraser's options open on a second click. Most tools also have a single-key shortcut (Heart, Speech bubble and Cloud do not).

Tip: H picks the Highlighter, not the hand. To pan, hold Space from any tool or use the Hand button.

Comment, Laser pointer and Eyedropper are in the rail's More flyout, which also lists the panels with their keys.

Pen options

The Pen options show the six brushes, a Width slider (1 to 20 px in half steps, with a preview of the stroke), and Colour: seven quick inks (black, slate, red, orange, green, blue, violet), a More colours button that opens a 32-colour palette, a colour Wheel and a hex field, and a row of up to eight recent colours.

Straighten on hold (on by default) turns a stroke into the shape you meant: draw a box, circle or ellipse, diamond, triangle or straight line with the Pen, Pencil, Marker or Calligraphy brush, and rest the pen for a moment (about 0.4 seconds) before lifting. Highlighter and Handwrite strokes are never straightened. If the stroke reads as a shape it is replaced by a clean one, and a line drawn between two shapes becomes a connector bound to both. Quick strokes are never touched, and ⌘Z brings your original ink back. Toggle it from the Pen options or ⌘K Toggle straighten on hold.

Shape options

The Shapes options show the ten shapes and Frame. With Polygon chosen, a Sides slider sets 3 to 12 sides (default 6). With Rectangle or Ellipse chosen, Fill offers no fill or six pastel fills. With Frame chosen, Place a frame drops a frame of a standard size in the middle of the view:

Text and sticky notes

Click with Text to type; press Enter to finish (Shift+Enter for a new line) and Escape to cancel. Double-click any text, sticky, shape or editable wireframe to edit its words, or select it and press Enter or F2.

Sticky notes are built for brainstorming:

• Press Enter to commit a note and open the next one straight away. Next note on Enter in the sticky options chooses ↓ Below or → Beside.
• While typing in a note, Tab and Shift+Tab cycle its colour through the eight sticky colours (yellow, orange, pink, green, blue, violet, red, grey).
• Escape on an empty note that Enter just opened removes it.
• In a live session, new notes carry your name as their author.

Stamps and images

The Stamp options offer twenty stamps: smile, heart, star, check, x, warning, bell, bookmark, thumbs up, thumbs down, info, flag, lightbulb, rocket, key, lock, user, cloud, sun and moon. Pick one and click on the board, or press Place in the middle.

Insert image opens a file picker for PNG, JPEG, WebP or GIF images (it also accepts .ink boards and Excalidraw files). You can also paste an image or drop an image file onto the board. Images larger than 2,048 pixels on their longer side are shrunk to that size and re-encoded before they are stored; if one is still very large you are warned that the board may become too big to autosave.

Selecting and arranging

Click to select, Shift-click to add or remove an element, or drag a marquee. Clicking any member of a group selects the whole group. ⌘A selects everything visible and unlocked. Arrow keys nudge the selection by 1 px (10 px with Shift); a burst of nudges is one undo step. Escape clears the selection. Delete or Backspace removes it. Hold Shift while drawing a rectangle, ellipse or wireframe to keep it square, while drawing a line or arrow to snap it to 45-degree angles, while resizing a multiple selection to keep its proportions, and while rotating to snap to 15-degree steps.

The selection toolbar

A toolbar follows the selection. Its controls appear only when they apply.

⌘G groups the selection so it moves as one; ⇧⌘G ungroups. Lock says "Locked — right-click an element to unlock it": a locked element cannot be selected on the board, so right-click it and choose Unlock, or use the Layers panel.

Save as component… opens a small Name this component form beside the ⋯ button.

The right-click menu

Right-click an element for its context menu. Which rows appear depends on the element.

Select same kind grows the selection to every visible, unlocked element of the same kind, for example every sticky note, so you can restyle them all at once.

Connectors that stay attached

Arrows and lines drawn from one shape to another bind to both ends: move either shape and the connector follows, re-anchoring to its edge. Each connector can carry a label (double-click it, or right-click Add label) and has three routes: Straight route, Elbow route (right angles, flowchart style) and Curved route. Change the route for several connectors at once from ⌘K (Connector: straight route, Connector: elbow route, Connector: curved route). Snapping to other elements while you move things is on by default; toggle it with Snap to objects in the zoom menu or ⌘K Toggle snapping.

Frames, layout and presenting

A frame is a named region. Frames do four jobs:

• They name the board (the first labelled frame becomes the board title).
• They are slides: presentation mode, the frame exports and the deck exports go frame by frame in reading order (left to right within a row, rows top to bottom).
• They are containers with optional auto-layout.
• They are prototype screens: any element can link to a frame.

Frame layout and constraints

Select a frame and open Layout on the selection toolbar.

For an element inside a frame, Constraints sets how it behaves when the frame is resized: Pin to any of nine positions (top-left through bottom-right, or Centre both ways), and for Across and Down one of Scale, Start, Centre, End or Stretch.

Prototype links

Right-click an element and choose Link to frame…, then pick a frame ("Link to frame — clicking this element in Present mode jumps there."). In presentation mode, clicking that element jumps to the linked frame. The Layers panel marks linked elements, and the Check panel reports links to frames that no longer exist and frames nothing links to.

Presenting

Press Present in the people island or ⇧⌘E (Starter and above). The frames play as slides in reading order, full screen, with only a small control bar: previous and next frame, the slide number and frame name, the Laser pointer toggle and Exit presentation.

If the board has no frames you are told to "Draw frames to define slides — pick the Frame tool (F) and drag out a region per slide". Hidden frames are skipped; if every frame is hidden, you are told to reopen them in Layers. ⌘K and ? still work while you present. If presentation went full screen, leaving full screen (for example with Escape) also ends the presentation.

The Frames… row in the zoom menu (and ⌘K Frames navigator) lists every frame in reading order; click one to jump to it.

The library

The Library button on the rail opens a flyout with three tabs: Boards, Wireframes and Components. Boards and Wireframes have a search box that shows how many items it covers; Components gets one once you have more than six. Keep open pins the flyout while you work. Star any board or wireframe tile to pin it to a Pinned strip at the top; up to 24 pins are kept, and the oldest is unpinned when you add more.

Boards and canvases

Ready-made boards, stamped onto your board as ordinary editable shapes, sticky notes and frames. Click a tile to place it in the middle of the view, or drag it onto the board. Each tile previews the real result. Category chips (All plus each category, with counts) filter the grid; Clear filters resets them. Some kits arrive with a facilitation agenda, which opens the Facilitate panel with its steps.

A kit that appears on two shelves (RACI matrix, for example) is labelled with its shelf, such as "RACI matrix · Ops".

⌘K lists each shelf by name (for example Ops canvases), opening the library already searched for that shelf.

Wireframes

111 wireframe pieces in seven groups: Devices (8), Navigation (8), Controls & forms (14), Content (22), Overlays & feedback (13), App screens (29) and Page templates (17). Free accounts can use 12 of them; the rest show a lock and say they are "part of the full wireframe kit on Starter".

• Click a tile to drop it in the middle of the view.
• Drag a tile onto the board to place it where you drop it.
• Double-click a tile, or switch on Drag-to-place tool, then drag on the board to place it at any size.

Twelve wireframes have editable content: Nav bar, Tabs, Breadcrumbs, Button, Input field, Dropdown / select, Form (stacked), Card, List rows, Data table, Badge / chip and Avatar. Right-click one and choose Content… to type its labels, links, rows or cells (tables take one row per line with cells split on |). Lo-fi squiggles switches back to the placeholder look and keeps your words for when you switch it off again.

Components

A component is a selection you save to reuse. Select something, open ⋯ on the selection toolbar and choose Save as component…, name it and press Save. The toast offers Share to workspace.

Edit the main set on the board and instances follow; an instance you edit keeps its overrides. Right-click an instance for Variant… (switch variant in place, keeping overrides), Reset overrides or Detach instance (turn it back into plain shapes).

Personal components are kept in your browser: up to 5 on Free and unlimited on paid plans, up to about 150 KB per component and 300 KB in total (the oldest are removed beyond that, with a toast). Below them, the collapsible Workspace section lists components stored on your account (marked "Personal") and those shared with your teams (marked with the team's name), with Share selection to workspace: pick a team under "Share with…", then give the component a name. Sharing with a team workspace is an Ultra (and Enterprise) feature, and you need to be signed in and a member of a team; otherwise you see "Sign in to share components with your workspace" or "You're not in a team yet — create one from your account menu first". Deleting a shared component removes it for the whole workspace.

The board panels

The drawer on the right holds the board's panels. Open them from the rail's More flyout, their function keys, ⌘K, or ⌘. (which opens Layers if nothing else is open). Layers, Outline, Check and History are tabs of one drawer titled Board; Facilitate and Outcome open on their own.

Layers (F10)

The paint stack, top first. Each row shows the element's name or kind and lets you Show / Hide it (hidden elements are left out of the canvas and exports), Lock / Unlock it, select it, and Bring forward or Send backward. Linked elements show a link icon.

Outline (F6)

The board as a document: frames as headings and every shape as a row in reading order, with its kind, lane and connections. Unnamed shapes are flagged ("N shapes still need a name — that is what is holding this board below reviewed") with a Name it button. The speech-bubble button on each row lets you write a description of the element for screen readers and the SVG export. Click a row to select the element and bring it into view; Tab on the board walks the same order.

History (F7)

Every step the board has taken, newest first, each with what it changed (added, removed, changed, moved). Click a row to put the board back to just after that step; click a greyed row to put it back again. Undo and Redo are at the top. The log keeps up to 200 steps and is saved with the board, so it survives a reload and a board switch (on very large boards the oldest steps are dropped to stay within the board's size). In a live session, Undo takes back only your own last edit; clicking a row walks the whole timeline, including other people's steps.

Below the steps, the collapsed Checkpoints section (Starter and above; on Free, opening it shows "Version history is part of Starter…") holds saved versions of the board. A checkpoint is saved automatically, at most every five minutes and only when the board has changed, after a successful autosave (the ten most recent automatic ones are kept). To save one yourself, type an optional name in "Checkpoint name (optional)" and press Save now (disabled on an empty board). Each row is marked auto or manual. Restore needs two clicks (the button turns into "Replace sketch?") and replaces the board's current drawing; delete also needs two clicks and cannot be undone. See Version history and undo.

Check (F8)

A structural review of what the board says as a diagram, read from your shapes, labels and connectors. The top line says how much of the board could be read. Each finding names its problem and how many elements it is about; click it to zoom to those strokes.

When the board reads as a particular notation (a flowchart, for example), that notation's own rules can add further findings. Layout-only checks such as crossing connectors are not part of Sketch's check. Each row says whether it is about some elements ("N elements") or "about the whole board". With nothing to report, the panel says "Nothing structurally wrong with what could be read."

Fix all safe (N) applies only mechanical repairs, such as nudging a shape clear or writing yes / no on an unlabelled branch, as one undo step; anything that needs a judgement is left alone. Re-check reads the whole board again; the automatic check stops at 2,000 elements and says so, while Re-check has no limit. When the board's frames are linked as a prototype, a line under the receipt says how many frames can be reached ("Prototype links: N of M frames can be arrived at."). Write the outcome opens the Outcome panel.

Outcome

Ends a session by writing it down. It reads the board and the facilitation record and lists what it finds, each line citing the element it came from (click to zoom):

Save to library saves the outcome as a document in your library, permanently linked to this board. Re-read rebuilds it.

Facilitating a workshop

Open Facilitate (F9) from the people island. In a live session, everything here is shared: the timer counts on every screen and votes are collected from everyone.

From sketch to diagram

Clean up (no AI)

⌘K Clean up — boxes and arrows from ink, or Clean up ink from the prompt, recognises hand-drawn boxes, diamonds, ellipses, triangles, arrows and labels in the selection (or the whole board). A card reports what it found ("Recognized N shapes and M connectors…") and offers:

• Tidy in place: replace the recognised ink with clean shapes and bound arrows, as one undo step.
• Send to Weave: copy the result for the Weave canvas (paste with ⌘V) or open Weave with it loaded.

If nothing reads as a diagram you see "Nothing here reads as boxes and arrows yet".

Convert sketch to diagram

⋮ › Convert sketch to diagram, ⌘K, or Convert to diagram in the prompt's suggestions opens Convert your sketch to a clean diagram.

1. Optionally press Need an idea? Show what to sketch for suggestions that pre-select a target engine.
2. Pick a Target engine: Auto-detect first, then groups headed Flow / process, Architecture, Data / charts, Domain-specific and Research-native. Hovering an engine shows what it is for and which studio it opens in. On Free, a note reads "Free: 5 engines · Unlock 19 with Starter or paste a key in Settings", and the locked engines are greyed out with a Plus badge; in fact any paid plan (Starter and up) unlocks them, and a key of your own also needs Starter.
3. Press Convert ("Reading your sketch…" while it works).

Sketch reads your ink directly first. For Auto-detect (which reads as Mermaid), Mermaid, Graphviz, D2, PlantUML and DBML, if the drawing has enough structure, the result is produced in your browser with no AI and no points ("Read straight from your ink — Mermaid, no AI involved"), with a What was read receipt listing anything it could not read and any shapes that arrive unlabelled. Otherwise a picture of the board, plus whatever structure was read, is sent to the flowss Sketch Agent, and a note explains why ("Reading the ink directly wasn't enough — …", or, for an engine the ink read cannot produce, "Reading the ink directly produces Mermaid, DOT, D2, PlantUML and DBML, and you asked for …"). The result card then reads "AI proposed a … diagram". An AI convert is a vision request and costs twice a standard request.

Note: Weave is one of the five free targets, but it is not an ink-read engine: a convert to Weave always goes to the flowss Sketch Agent, so on Free it is refused. To move a drawing into Weave without AI, use Clean up and then Send to Weave.

The result card shows the source in an editable box and offers Open in Studio (or Open in Weave canvas or Open in The Lab, depending on the engine), Download source, Copy source, Merge back onto the board (for Mermaid, Graphviz, D2, PlantUML and DBML, once you have edited the source: adds what the text describes to the board as real bound shapes) and Try again. If there is nothing to convert, a Nothing to convert yet card explains why and adds "Your drawing is safe here — Sketch is the hand-drawn canvas, so there is nowhere better for it to go until it has a diagram in it." The convert dialog also has a Need an idea? Show what to sketch toggle (it becomes Hide suggestions); the ideas are grouped by category and each shows the engine it usually lands on.

If AI is switched off on the server you are using and you have no AI key of your own, the dialog says "AI is off — no platform key is configured" and offers Convert from your ink (no AI) and Or tidy it in place on this canvas (Clean up) instead. On Free, which has no AI, a convert works whenever your ink can be read directly; one that would need the flowss Sketch Agent is refused.

Handwriting to text

Write with the Handwrite tool (W), then choose Handwriting to text (⌘K or the prompt). The flowss Sketch Agent reads your latest handwriting and replaces it with typed words. Words it is unsure of are underlined, with the ink kept beside them to check; the toast offers Undo. This is a vision request.

Generate wireframes with AI

Type a description of a screen in the prompt in Quick mode, or use ⌘K Generate wireframes with AI, which opens Generate a wireframe from a description with three examples to click: "A checkout page with cart summary and payment form", "A settings screen with sidebar navigation" and "A mobile login screen with social buttons". Press Generate wireframes (⌘Enter; it reads "Laying out your screen…" while working) or Cancel (Esc). The AI lays the screen out from the wireframe library, and the pieces are placed grouped and selected, fully editable ("Placed N wireframes — grouped and selected"). If you run out of points, the dialog offers to buy a top-up pack right there.

The flowss Sketch Agent

Switch the prompt to Agent and send a request, or choose Open the flowss Sketch Agent in ⌘K. The agent opens in a sheet above the prompt titled flowss Sketch Agent — Sketch interpreter. It builds and refines diagram source: describe a diagram and it builds one, or convert your sketch first and ask it to fix a mis-read, complete the diagram or change its type. Its result replaces the converted source, and Open in … takes it to the right studio. The panel is being redesigned; the behaviour described here is what it does. See The flowss Studio Agent and its modes.

Send to another studio

Share › Send reads the board as a diagram (the same read as Convert from ink) and sends it to another studio, converting if needed. A board with no diagram in it cannot be sent yet, and the message says why. See Moving work between studios.

Importing and pasting

Exporting

All exports are in ⋮ › Export. PNG exports use the board's paper colour for your current theme unless stated otherwise.

Hidden elements are left out of exports. Whole-board PNG and SVG files are named sketch- followed by a timestamp; the PDF deck is sketch-deck.pdf (or sketch-board.pdf for a one-page board), and the PowerPoint and Word files are sketch-deck.pptx and sketch-deck.docx. Export selection as PNG and Export selection as SVG need a selection first ("Select something first to export it"). Very large boards are rasterised at a reduced scale so the PNG stays a manageable size; the toast tells you when a 2× export came out smaller. See Exporting your work.

Comments

Pick Comment (D), or New comment in the Comments flyout ("Click anywhere on the board to pin it · D"), and click anywhere on the board to pin a thread there ("Leave a comment — it pins right here and saves with the sketch…"). Press Enter to post (Shift+Enter for a new line, Escape to discard). Click a pin to open its thread: reply in the "Reply…" box, Resolve this thread or Re-open this thread, Delete your reply, or Delete this thread (which removes every reply). The Comments button in the people island shows the number of unresolved threads and lists every thread, newest first; click one to jump to its pin. ⌘K Show comments opens the same list.

Comments are saved with the board and sync live in a live session. A comment longer than 2,000 characters is trimmed ("Comment trimmed to 2,000 characters"); a thread keeps 50 messages, after which its oldest replies are removed; a board keeps 200 threads, after which the oldest thread is removed ("Comment limit reached — the oldest thread was removed to make room"). Clearing the board deletes its comments permanently. See Comments and review.

Live sessions

In a Sketch live session everyone draws on the same board at the same time, with live cursors. Hosting needs Plus (up to 3 people, you included) or Ultra and Enterprise (no cap); guests can join on any plan, including Free, but must be signed in. If your plan cannot host, Start live session is shown locked with a sentence naming the plan that unlocks it.

1. Open Share and choose Start live session. The link is copied: "Live link copied — anyone who opens it lands in this sketch with you".
2. When someone opens the link while their own board has content, the session opens on a new board for them (titled "Live session" plus the session code), so their work is never replaced ("Joined the live session on a new board — your own board … is still in your library, untouched."). On Free, if they already have 3 boards, the join is refused instead ("Couldn't join the live session — it opens on a board of its own, and no new board can be made…").
3. A Follow strip shows a chip per person; click one to ride their view until you pan or zoom yourself.
4. Use Copy live link and Leave session ("Your sketch stays as it is") from the Share popover. Voice is per person and needs Ultra or Enterprise: Join voice (peer-to-peer, beta), then Mute microphone / Unmute microphone, Share your screen / Stop sharing your screen and Leave voice.

Comments, the timer, votes, estimates, reactions and spotlight are all shared. Switching to another board leaves the session ("Left the live session — switching boards would have replaced the shared canvas"). Very large pasted images stay on your own board and are not synced ("Some pasted images are too large to sync live — they stay on your canvas only"). Sketch has no copy-a-link permalink: the Copy link row at the top of the Share popover is greyed out and reads "Save it to share a link", but there is no save-to-share for boards. To share a board outside a live session, export it (the .ink file reopens fully editable) or send it to another studio. See Live collaboration.

Finding things on a board

⌘F opens Find on board ("Find on board…"): type to search every sticky, label and note; the counter shows the match number. Enter goes to the next match, Shift+Enter to the previous, Escape closes; the bar also has Previous match, Next match and Close find buttons. The minimap (⇧M, on by default once the board has content, toggled from the zoom menu) shows the whole board with a viewport rectangle you can drag to pan.

The zoom percentage in the view island opens the zoom menu: Zoom to fit (⇧F), Zoom to 100% (⌘0), Frames…, Snap to objects (a tick shows it is on), Minimap (⇧M), Full screen and Hide interface (⌥Z). On a phone the same menu also carries Zoom in and Zoom out. Sketch has no "Zoom to selection".

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? for the in-studio cheat sheet.

Scroll to pan, and hold ⌘ (Ctrl) while scrolling to zoom; on touch screens, pinch to zoom and drag with two fingers to pan. Presentation keys are listed under Presenting. See Keyboard shortcuts.

Tips

• Label frames as you go: the first one names your board, and frames become slides, deck pages and prototype screens for free.
• Draw boxes and arrows with the Pen and rest the pen at the end of each stroke; they become clean, bound shapes as you draw, and your diagram is ready to convert.
• Before converting, open Check (F8) and use Fix all safe; unlabelled branches and loose connectors are what usually stop a clean read.
• Try Convert with Mermaid or D2 first: when your ink has enough structure it converts instantly, offline and without spending points.
• Use Select same kind from the right-click menu to restyle every sticky or arrow at once.
• Run a retro from the library's Retro board or Sailboat retro, open Facilitate for the timer and dot voting, then Write the outcome and Save to library.
• Use Export board (.ink) before a big change; it is the only export you can open again as a fully editable board.

Limits and known constraints

• Boards are stored in your browser first. Each board has a size budget for autosave; large pasted images use it fastest. Export important boards as .ink.
• Free keeps 3 boards, 5 personal components and 12 wireframes. Presenting and checkpoints need Starter.
• The undo log keeps up to 200 steps per board.
• Automatic checkpoints are saved at most every five minutes, and only when the board has changed; the ten most recent automatic ones are kept.
• Personal components are limited to about 150 KB each and 300 KB in total; up to 24 library tiles can be pinned.
• The automatic Check stops at 2,000 elements; use Re-check for larger boards.
• Converting from ink without AI covers Mermaid, Graphviz, D2, PlantUML and DBML; other engines, Weave included, need the flowss Sketch Agent, which Free does not have.
• The Check panel reads structure, not layout: it does not report crossing connectors or misaligned shapes.
• Merge back onto the board works for Mermaid, Graphviz, D2, PlantUML and DBML only.
• PNG exports are limited by the browser's maximum canvas size and are scaled down for very large boards; SVG is not.
• Guests in a live session must be signed in; on Free, joining needs a free board slot.
• Sketch has no shareable permalink; share live, export, or send to another studio.

Troubleshooting

For anything else, see Troubleshooting and FAQ.

Related pages

• Sketch learn track: a nine-minute guided introduction
• Weave, where cleaned-up sketches can continue as a structured canvas
• BPMN for formal process models
• Choosing an engine and the engine reference
• Importing and converting
• Your library, Moving work between studios and Version history and undo
• Live collaboration, Comments and review and Teams and organisations
• AI in flowss, AI points and limits and Bring your own AI key
• Exporting your work
• Use cases by role
• Plans and what they include