Members-only apps: how people sign in

A members-only app opens only for the people in your workspace. There's nothing to share and no invite link to manage: if someone is a member of the workspace, they can sign in; if they aren't, they can't. In the console, choose Workspace members under Who can use it? when you create an app; the app's Settings → Access shows it afterwards.

Who can open a members-only app

Everyone on your workspace's team, and nobody else. The list lives in your workspace Settings → Team: add someone there and they can open every members-only app in the workspace; remove them and they can't.

It's about membership, not email addresses. A member who signs in with a personal address is let in like anyone else on the team, and a stranger with an address at your company's domain is not.

How a person signs in

1. They open the app's address. If they aren't signed in yet, they see a sign-in page with your workspace's name or logo, your colours, and the name of the app they're opening.
2. They type their email and choose Email me a sign-in link.
3. An email arrives with a sign-in link and a 6-digit sign-in code. Either one signs them in, once: using one cancels the other. Both expire after 15 minutes.

The page shows the same "check your inbox" message whatever address is typed, so it never reveals who is a member. Only members actually receive the email.

If your workspace also offers Sign in with Google, the page shows that button too, for people whose Google account uses the email address they're a member with.

The link or the code?

The link works in any browser; the code works on the page where you asked for it.

• The link opens a short page with a Continue button, and choosing it signs in the browser that opened the link. It's the quickest way when the email is on the same computer or phone as the app. Security tools that check the links in your mail don't use it up: only the Continue button does.
• The code is for when the email opens somewhere else: on a phone while the sign-in page is on a laptop, or inside a mail app's own browser. Type the 6 digits on the sign-in page you started from, and that browser is the one that stays signed in.

A code allows 5 tries. After that, or once 15 minutes have passed, go back to the app and ask for a new email; only the newest code works.

So that codes can't be guessed, each address gets a limited number of code tries per hour and per day, and the whole workspace a limited number per hour. Past a limit, codes stop working for a while, but the link in the newest email still works. A new sign-in email can go to the same address once every 3 minutes; until then, the last one's link and code keep working.

Staying signed in

Once someone has signed in, they stay signed in for 90 days on that browser. Each time the app checks their sign-in (at most once a day), the 90 days start again, so someone who uses your apps regularly doesn't see the sign-in page again.

One sign-in covers every members-only app in the workspace on that browser: after opening one, the next one opens without asking.

A different browser or device is a separate sign-in. Opening the app on a phone for the first time means signing in once there.

Removing someone

Remove them from your workspace's Team. From that moment they can't sign in again, and any members-only app they still have open stops letting them in within a day.

When that day matters, the app's owner can use Sign everyone out in the app's Settings: everyone who still belongs gets straight back in, and anyone no longer on the team is stopped right away.