The Shareling app sends a link to one specific person and keeps it in both your libraries, so links stop arriving scattered across Messages, X and LinkedIn with the good ones parked in Chrome bookmarks. It runs on Mac, iPhone and iPad, and the same library holds the links you keep for yourself.
Sending to a person, invites, the notch drop, Unsend and Remove person are designed but not built yet. The answers below describe how Shareling works at launch, taken from its design rulings, its vocabulary file and its architecture notes.
Where does Shareling keep my links?
Shareling keeps your links in iCloud, in zones owned by the people who use it, and in a local database on each of your devices. There is no Shareling server in the design: your library is made only of iCloud zones.
Every link exists exactly once, in the iCloud zone of whoever sent it:
- A link you send sits in a zone you own, shared with one recipient. That zone is a channel.
- A link someone sends you sits in their zone, which they share with you.
- A link you keep for yourself sits in your own private zone.
Your library is a view over those zones rather than a separate store: your private zone, the zones you own and the shared zones you take part in, combined. All Links, Sent, Received and Recents are filters over that combination, and a link that reaches you more than once shows up once because the library matches links by a canonical form of the URL.
What you do to someone else's link stays in your own zone. Your folders, your read state and whether you hid it live in one private record per link, in your private zone, so nothing you do to a friend's link is written into theirs. Favorites and read later are private flags on that same record. Folders work like tags: one link can sit under two projects, and nobody else sees them.
Preview images are fetched again on each device and never stored in iCloud, so a link carries no stored image. On each device, the app and its share extension write to one local database in a shared app container, so the share extension can save a link offline or while the app is closed.
The live iCloud connection is not in the current code. Shareling's architecture notes list the CloudKit transport and share creation as a later piece of work.
Does the other person know when I open a link they sent?
No. Shareling has no read receipts: whether you have read a link is stored in your own private zone, and the sender is never notified when you open or save it.
The design treats this as a deliberate choice. A read receipt would have to be a product decision on its own, never a side effect of where a field happens to be stored, and the ruling that settled it removes any "sender notified on read or save" trigger.
What you do see is your own unread count, overall and per person. A link counts as read only when you click it. Opening the notch capsule marks nothing, and "mark all read" is a manual action that never runs on its own.
The note is the one thing about a link the other person does see. You write it when you send the link, it travels with the link, and it is where context meant for the recipient goes.
Can I unsend a link?
Yes, within one hour of sending it. Unsend deletes the link from your zone, so it disappears from the recipient's library too, and it leaves no marker saying something was removed.
The window is short because of where links live. A link exists only once, in the sender's zone, so there is no copy on the recipient's side to survive an unsend. The hour is a promise the app keeps in its interface, not a limit in iCloud storage: the owner of a zone can always delete their own records.
After the hour, Hide is still there. Either person can hide any link at any time, including links they sent. Hiding removes the link from your own view and deletes nothing, so the other person's library is unchanged.
| Act | Who | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hide | Either person | Any time | The link leaves your view. Nothing is deleted. |
| Unsend | The sender | Within 1 hour | The link is deleted, with no marker left. |
| Remove person | You | Any time | The channel ends. Nothing you received is lost. |
What happens when I remove a person?
Removing a person ends your channels with them and keeps every link they sent you. Shareling copies their links into your private zone, checks the copy, and only then revokes both shares.
- Shareling copies each link the person sent you into your own private zone.
- It verifies the copies.
- It revokes both shares: yours to them and theirs to you.
Each copied link keeps a snapshot of the sender's display name, so you can still see who sent it. The copy is safe to repeat per link, so if it stops halfway it can resume without duplicating anything. Your library looks the same afterwards.
This is the only time Shareling copies a link. In normal use every link exists once, in its sender's zone.
Does Shareling have groups?
No. A channel in Shareling is between exactly two people, and there are no groups and no feed. A friendship is two channels, one for each direction, so each person owns the links they sent.
One drop goes to one destination, with no multi-select. Sending a link to three people takes three drops, which produces three separate records, and each can carry a different note. Your own library still shows the link once.
On the Mac, a drop can land on one of three places: a person (send), Self (keep it for yourself), or New person (start an invite).
Which devices does it run on?
Shareling runs on Mac, iPhone and iPad, on macOS 26, iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 or later. The Mac app and the iPhone and iPad app share one app identity, and the iPhone and iPad app includes a share extension for saving links from other apps.
The notch capsule for dropping a link on a person is a Mac surface: it appears at the top center of the screen when you drag a link. The design boards draw the library on Mac, iPhone and iPad alike. If Shareling is missing from the iPhone share sheet, see share extension not showing up.
Plans and pricing are on the plans page.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the Shareling app store my links?
In iCloud, in zones owned by the people who use Shareling. Once sending ships at launch, a link you send will exist once, in your iCloud zone shared with the recipient; a link you keep for yourself sits in your private zone. Each device also keeps a local database of your links.
Does Shareling tell the sender when I open a link?
No. Sending to a person is designed for launch, and in that design whether you have read a link is stored in your own private iCloud zone, with no read receipts. The sender is not notified when you open or save a link.
Can I unsend a link in Shareling?
At launch, yes, for one hour after sending; Unsend is designed but not built yet. It deletes the link and leaves no marker behind. After the hour, either person can still hide the link from their own view.
Does Shareling support group chats or sending to several people?
No. As designed for launch, a channel in Shareling is between exactly two people, and one drop goes to one person. Sending a link to three people takes three drops, each with its own note if you want one.
Which devices does Shareling run on?
Mac, iPhone and iPad, on macOS 26, iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 or later.
Send a link to the person you mean it forShareling is a Mac, iPhone and iPad app for sending a link to one person and keeping the links you save, synced through your own iCloud.