Cloud sync

Sync lives under the gear → Cloud Sync, and there are two of them. They are not alternatives to each other so much as different tools: one goes through your TabOasis account, the other through Chrome’s own account sync.

Both are Pro features. Without a licence the pane explains what they do and offers Upgrade to Pro.

Server Sync

The one marked Recommended. It uploads your whole library to your TabOasis account, so any browser you sign into can pull it down.

It is manual in both directions. Nothing syncs on a timer, on a change, or when you sign in. You press Upload; you press Download. Until you press Upload, the server has no copy of your board at all.

What goes up

One blob, holding:

• every profile — columns, cards, folders, tags, avatars
• which profile was active
• all of Focus mode: sticky notes, session history, backgrounds, the playlist
• your Pomodoro settings, and the rest of your settings

What does not go up: your API keys. They live in a different place on the device and are never part of the payload — see Where the key lives.

The whole thing is capped at 5 MB. A library that exceeds it is refused rather than truncated.

Download replaces everything

Download from Server asks you to confirm, because it does exactly what it says: This will replace all local data with server data. There is no merge and no per-item picking. If the local board has work the server has not seen, upload first.

Version, and the conflict dialog

The pane shows Version: n. That number goes up by one on every successful upload and is how the server notices two devices working from the same starting point.

If it does, your upload is refused and you get Sync Conflict:

Your data was modified on another device since your last sync. Do you want to keep your local data or use the server version?

Two buttons, and they do different amounts of work:

• Use Server Version — the server’s copy is applied to this device immediately, replacing what is here. Same effect as a Download.
• Keep Local — nothing is uploaded yet. It clears the conflict and adopts the server’s version number, which is what makes your next Upload be accepted instead of refused. The toast says so: Kept local data. Upload again to overwrite server.

Keep Local arms an overwrite; it does not perform one

Two things follow from that version number, and the second is the one that matters.

Press Keep Local and then close the settings, and the server still holds the other device’s version — nothing has been uploaded. You have to press Upload again, and nothing warns you a second time.

When you do, that Upload replaces the other device’s entire board. Adopting the server’s version is exactly what lets it past the check that refused you a moment ago, so the conflict is not resolved so much as overruled. There is no merge, no field-level reconciliation, no history and no undo — whatever the other device added since your last sync is gone, and the only way back is a JSON export you took beforehand.

If you are not certain your copy is the fuller one, close the dialog and export this device’s board first. See Troubleshooting.

Dismissing the conflict dialog without choosing simply clears it — again, nothing is uploaded.

Chrome Sync

The second half of the pane. This one goes through Chrome’s own sync, so it moves between browsers signed into the same Google account and needs no TabOasis server round trip.

No TabOasis server, but not “no server”

“Needs no TabOasis round trip” is not the same as staying on your machine. What this button writes goes into chrome.storage.sync, and Chrome replicates that through your Google account — which is how it reaches your other browsers at all. So the card titles and URLs below transit Google, the same way anything else Chrome syncs does. It is your own account, and nothing happens until you press the button, but it is worth knowing which company holds the copy: Server Sync above stores it at TabOasis, this one stores it at Google. See What we store and why.

It is much smaller in scope:

• The active profile only — its columns, cards, folders and tags. Other profiles are not carried, and neither are avatars.
• Focus data, with session history trimmed to the last 200 entries.
• Your Pomodoro settings.

Chrome gives an extension roughly 100 KB there in total. A library that does not fit is refused with Data is too large for Chrome Sync (about 100KB limit). Use server sync instead. — again, never truncated. For a real library, Server Sync is the one that works.

In a browser that has no Chrome sync at all, the section reads Not available with the note Chrome Sync is only available in Chrome browser with sync enabled., and the buttons are gone. It cannot tell whether you have Chrome’s own sync switched on, though — with it off, an upload appears to succeed and simply never reaches another machine.

Which one enforces Pro

Server Sync is the only part of TabOasis the server actually gates. Every upload and download of the board itself is checked against your licence and refused without one, which is why sync stops working promptly when a subscription lapses while themes and views carry on until the extension notices.

The grace window is the same whichever way it lapses: a renewal that is merely late and a failed payment both keep sync working until three days after the period you paid for ends — Stripe is still retrying the card in that window. See Free vs Pro.

Two things are deliberately not gated: seeing what the server is storing for you, and deleting it. Those stay available with no licence at all, so a lapse can never leave you holding an uploaded library you cannot remove. See What we store and why.

Two things that catch people out

Signing in does not download

Installing TabOasis on a second machine and signing in gives you an empty board, not your board. Signing in proves who you are; it does not move data. Press Download — and read the confirmation, because it will replace whatever that machine already had.

Sync is per account, not per device pair

There is one stored copy, not one per device. Three devices all upload to and download from the same blob, and the last successful Upload is what the next Download hands out.