How threadline works.

Sign up with your email or with Google. A short welcome from Jesse offers to start your first project; you can skip it and look around first.

Name it and you land on its canvas as the project's Head. Start blank, from a small template, or open a finished sample to see a project already in motion.

Press O, or paste a bulleted list anywhere on the canvas. Every bullet becomes a task; press Tab to nest a bullet under the one above it, and it waits on it. Numbered bullets (1. 2. 3.) go one after another.

On Free you can lead 5 projects with 10 tasks each, and join as many as you are invited to. A project runs on its Head's plan.

A task is Not started, In progress, Awaiting approval or Done, and can be flagged Blocked or Urgent. A task that waits on unfinished work says what it is waiting on; a late one is the only thing drawn in red.

Drag from one task to another to say the second waits on the first. An arrow that would make a loop is refused, and a task can't be done until everything it waits on is. A satisfied arrow is solid; an open one is dashed.

A folder holds its own canvas. Open it to work inside, and use the path at the top to come back out. The folder shows how far along the work inside it is.

Pan by dragging the empty canvas, zoom with the controls or ⌘ and scroll, and press ⇧1 to fit everything. All, Focus and Mine at the bottom right choose which tasks stand out.

Open a task to set who is on it and when it is due. Deadlines lists every dated task across your projects by what is late, due today and due this week.

A Member who finishes their task sends it for approval. The Head or a Co-head approves it, or sends it back with a note saying what needs to change.

Every task has comments, with @mentions and private notes that only you and the Head can see, and files up to 5 MB that anyone on the project can open.

Each task opens into a full document — headings, lists, tables, images, page setup — that anyone on the project can write in and export to DOCX or PDF. A teammate's saved changes appear on your screen as they happen, and if you both change the page at once, it asks whose version to keep rather than losing either.

Every project has one Head, any number of Co-heads, and Members. The Head decides what Co-heads and Members may do, and anyone on the project can open Team to see who is there and what each role allows.

Add people from Share by name or email, or add a team at once. Invitations travel as a link you copy and send yourself; everyone joins as a Member.

The Head can turn on a link that lets anyone who has it read the graph without signing in. It never lets anyone edit, and it can be turned off at any time.

Changes arrive on everyone's screen as they happen, with who is here now. Each project has a channel, and you can message anyone you work with directly.

Set your name, username, picture and bio in Settings, and choose light, dark or your system's theme.

Choose which kinds of notification reach you — assignments, approvals, mentions and due dates each have a switch. They arrive in the bell, live.

Pro is prepaid for one, six or twelve months by QR Ph, and never renews by itself. When it ends, nothing is deleted.

A deleted project waits in Trash for 15 days, and a deleted task can be restored for 3 days. After that they are gone for good.

Press ⌘/ on the canvas for every shortcut. The most used: ⌘↵ adds a task, O writes a list, F2 renames the selected task, and Esc closes whatever is open.

Questions, bugs and ideas go to the person who builds threadline: the contact page delivers straight to his inbox, inside threadline.