User Guide

Get a board going

Five moves take you from a blank canvas to a connected board.

1. Start a case file. Ctrl+N, name it, pick a folder. Redstrings creates a .redstrings project folder to hold everything.
2. Create your first card. Press N to open New Card. Choose a type. Enter a name, then confirm.
3. Say what each card is. Select it and add a subtitle or notes in the panel on the right. Add a source when you want to record where the information came from.
4. String them together. Select a card, hold Shift, and drag from it onto another card. The string lands with its label open for editing. Keep the starting label or type your own, then press Enter.
5. Rate how sure you are. Select the string and set it to Confirmed, Suspected, or Uncertain. The line itself changes to show it.

Tradecraft

The moves that aren't obvious from looking at the screen.

• Drop files straight from your computer. Drag photos or documents onto the board and each one becomes its own card, named after the file.
• String without moving the card. Select a card, then hold Shift and drag off it. The card stays put while a connector rubber-bands out to your target.
• Duplicate as you drag. Hold Alt and drag a card to peel off a copy and place it in one motion.
• Tilt a card. Drag the pin at the top of a selected card to cock it at an angle, the cork-board look. Ctrl+Shift+C straightens the whole wall at once.
• Use the keyboard to follow relationships. Arrow keys move from a card to a connected relationship, then to the card at the other end. With a relationship selected, hold Shift and press an arrow key to select another connected relationship label in that direction. Shift+Comma and Shift+Period are alternatives for Shift+Left Arrow and Shift+Right Arrow.
• Confidence is woven into the string. Tighter dashes mean more certain. It's readable at a glance, without a legend.
• Pin a label anywhere. Drag a relationship's label along the string to park it. Right-click it and choose Reset Position to send it back to the middle. Double-click the label to rename the relationship in place.
• Fork a string. Hold Shift and drag from the line of an existing string onto a third card. Choose whether to extend the same relationship to that card or hang a new, separately labelled one off it.
• Nest a board inside a board. Press N and pick Board to pin another board onto this one. Double-click the pin, or press Ctrl+↓, to walk in; Ctrl+↑ brings you back up.
• Flip a relationship. In the panel, click the arrow between the two card names to reverse which way it points.
• Edit right on the card. Double-click a card's title, subtitle, or notes to edit in place; Tab moves to the next field.
• Tab into the panel. With the side panel open, Tab drops your cursor straight into its first field, so your hands stay on the keyboard.

Case files & boards

A project (the app calls it a case file) is a folder that ends in.redstrings. Inside it you can keep as many boards as you like, organized into folders and sub-boards. All boards in a project share the same node types, relationships, and presets.

How do I start or open a project?

• New: Ctrl+N, or File → New Project…, or "Start a new one" on the empty file browser. Pick a location; Redstrings builds the .redstrings folder.
• Open: Ctrl+O, or File → Open Project…, or "Open a case file." Point it at a .redstrings folder. On Mac the same picker also opens single .redstring board files and older .json saves. On Windows and Linux, use File → Open Board… for those.
• Close: File → Close Project, or right-click the project in the File Browser. Redstrings asks first if there are unsaved changes.
• Your last project reopens automatically next time you launch, unless you closed it.

What about a single board file?

A .redstring board opened on its own shows in the File Browser under its file name. Redstrings offers to Convert to Project so you can attach photos, add more boards, and share it. Choose a location and Redstrings builds a project with a copy of the board. The original file stays where it is. Choose Not now to keep working on the single file.

How do I manage boards?

Toggle the File Browser with Ctrl+B. Its header has buttons for New Folder, New Board, and Refresh. Right-click for everything else:

Drag boards and folders to reorganize them. Sub-boards nest under their parent board and expand with the chevron. Deleting asks you to type the exact name to confirm, so nothing goes by accident. The dialog has a button that copies the name for you. Files live as plain .redstring (JSON) on your disk; images and documents you attach are copied into the project folder, so a project is self-contained and portable.

How do I put a board inside a board?

A pinned board is a card on the canvas that opens another board in the same project. It looks like a small framed board with a name tab. There are four ways to pin one:

• Press N and pick Board under "Notes & boards", then choose which board it opens.
• Right-click empty canvas and choose New Sub-board… to create a fresh board and pin it in one step. Undo removes both.
• Right-click empty canvas and choose Pin Board to drop an empty pin, then pick its board in the side panel.
• Right-click a board in the File Browser and choose Pin to Open Board.

Pins are a fixed size. Each board remembers its own zoom and position, so walking in and back out lands you where you left off.

How is my work saved?

Automatically. There is no Save command. The board writes to its.redstring file about a second after you stop making changes, and inspector fields commit a fraction of a second after you stop typing (a small Saving / Saved indicator shows the state). Export Project is a separate snapshot for sharing or backup, not a save. Switching away from a board with unsaved work prompts you first.

Reload is disabled on purpose (Ctrl+R and F5 do nothing) so you can't lose work to an accidental refresh. To step back, use Undo (Ctrl+Z).

Add cards

Cards are the things on your board: a person, a team, a document, an event, a place, or a note.

How do I add one?

• Press N (or Insert / Ctrl+Space while the canvas has focus; on Mac this is Control+Space, not ⌘)
• Double-click empty canvas, or right-click it and choose New Card
• Use Card → New Card… in the menu bar
• Drop a file from your computer (see Photos, files & links)

Any of these opens New Card at that spot: pick a type from theCards grid, type a name (it starts as "Untitled"), and confirm. Once a project has more than ten card types the grid scrolls and a filter box appears above it. The Notes & boards row holds the sticky Noteand the Board pin. Esc closes the dialog.

The built-in types

Each type carries a color and an icon so you can read the board at a glance.

Whether a card carries a photo, a file, or a link is a per-type setting (see Photos, files & links): Person and Place default to a photo, and every other built-in type starts plain. The Note type is special: a plain annotation with no subtitle, source, or relationships, and it connects to other cards with golden yarn instead of a string. It does not appear in the Card Types settings because there is nothing on it to configure. You can add your own types and change any of these under Types, colors & themes.

Photos, files & links

What a card can carry is set on its type, underSettings → Card Types: an Attachment mode of None, Photo, or File, plus an Allow URL toggle. Person and Place default to Photo; the rest default to None with no URL. A Photo type also sets a default Photo layout and Photo fit for its cards. Change a type once and every card of that type follows.

How do I attach a photo or file?

1. Select the card. The right panel shows a Photos or Files section.
2. Click the + tile (photo cards) or Add File (file cards) to pick from disk. Photo cards accept images only (PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF); file cards take anything.
3. Already imported something? Use Attach existing… to reuse an asset without importing it twice. You can also bulk-import under Settings → Assets with Upload files.

A card can hold several attachments. Files are copied into the project folder, not just linked, so nothing breaks if you move the original. Click a filename to open it in your default app. Adding a photo grows the card so the image is visible. The panel marks the photo the card shows with On card. To show a different one, click its thumbnail.

How do I change how the photo looks?

Select the card. Under the photo preview, choose a Card layout:

Crop and Fit on the preview set whether the photo fills its space or shows the whole image. Full always shows the whole photo, so these buttons are off for it. A card follows its type's layout until you pick a different one. Click Use type default to go back to the type's layout. Set the defaults for a type under Settings → Card Types with Photo layout and Photo fit. Built-in types start at Standard and Crop.

Importing needs a saved project. If you started on a fresh, unsaved board, save it as a project first and the attachment buttons come alive.

Create cards from files

Drag photos or documents from your file manager onto the canvas. Each one lands as a new card at the drop point, named after the file; drop several and they cascade so they don't stack. Images become photo cards, everything else becomes a file card. If a file with the same name is already in the project, Redstrings asks before replacing it.

First-time gotcha: a dropped file needs to know which card type to become. Set that once in Settings → Card Types: open a Photo or File type, click its ⚙ More options, and choose Make default Photo Card /Make default File Card. Until a default is set, a drop tells you to set one first. (Customizing card types is a Pro feature.)

How do I add a link?

Turn on Allow URL for the card's type first (Settings → Card Types). The inspector then shows a URL and an optional URL Label. Enter an http / https address, and the card shows a link chip with the label (or the domain); click it to open. One link per card.

Fill in a card

Select a card and the panel on the right, the inspector, holds everything about it. Every field autosaves; a small indicator shows when it's saved.

How do I edit without the panel?

Double-click a card's title, subtitle, or notes to edit right on the card. Tab /Shift+Tab move between title, subtitle, and notes. Enter saves a title or subtitle; in notes, Enter saves and Shift+Enter starts a new line; Esc cancels. With a card selected but not in edit mode,F2 jumps into the title and Enter opens the inspector.

What the card shows

A card is a compact view of what's inside. It carries a small colored type badge and an Open details button (the panel icon) that opens the inspector without starting an edit. The title sits on a label near the top of the card, set slightly off center so no two cards line up exactly. If the card has attachments it shows one as a photo, a file chip (name and size), or a link chip; click it to open the asset or URL, and open the inspector to see the rest. On a Standard card, make the card taller with the resize handle to reveal its photo and a short notes preview; very short cards hide the subtitle. Large and Full cards take their height from their width.

Arrange the wall

A pasted group appears under the pointer. If the pointer is outside the board, it appears at the center of the visible canvas. Redstrings refuses to paste a group that cannot fit inside the board frame. Right-click a card or string selection to cut or copy it. Right-click empty canvas to paste it.

Relationships between copied cards go with the copied group.

Cards with photos or files can be pasted only in the project where you copied them. Undo restores a cut selection or removes a pasted group.

Board size & frame

Each board has an edge and a frame. Cards, decorations, and pinned string labels stay inside the board. You can pan a short distance beyond the edge. PressCtrl+0 to fit the full board in the canvas.

How do I change the size?

Open Board in the canvas toolbar. The Size menu shows only sizes that contain the current content. Select a size to place its frame around the content. Card and decoration positions do not change.

If a smaller size cannot contain the content, the menu does not offer it. Undo restores the previous size.

How do I change the frame?

Open Board, then select Frame. Hover or focus a frame to preview it. Click a frame to apply it. The frame changes the board appearance only.

Minimal and Kraft & tape are included. Pro adds Case file, Metal, Wood, and Light frame collections. Without Pro you can still hover a Pro frame to preview it. Frame changes also support Undo.

Decorate the board

Decorations are visual marks that sit alongside your cards and strings: use them to group a cluster, call out a lead, or make the board read the way you think. They are saved with the board, and do not change your cards or relationships.

How do I add one?

In the canvas toolbar, open Decorate and choose Tape,Paper, or Text. Then place it on the board:

Each tool returns to Select after you place one. Press Esc to cancel a decoration tool without placing it.

How do I refine it?

Select a decoration to move it. Paper has corner handles for resizing; tape has end handles; text can be resized and rotated. Double-click text to edit it on the canvas.Enter starts a new line, and Ctrl+Enter or a click outside saves. Press Enter with any decoration selected to open its panel. There you can choose a preset or custom color, send it behind other decorations or bring it forward, adjust text size, and delete it. Del also deletes the selected decoration.

Select several decorations at once and the panel edits them together; a field readsMixed until you set it. Ctrl+D duplicates selected text labels.

How do I stop moving them by accident?

Open Decorate and switch on Lock decorations. Locked decorations ignore clicks and drags, so a click on tape or paper goes straight through to the canvas or the card underneath. Switch it off to edit them again. The lock is saved with the project.

Connect with strings

Strings are the relationships between cards. There are four ways to make one:

When you draw a string, its label opens for editing on the canvas. Press Enterto keep the starting label, or type a different label. New strings start with "relates to" unless the project has a default for those card types. In Pro, set these defaults under Settings → Card Types. A label cannot be empty.

How do I fork a string to a third card?

Hold Shift and drag from the line of an existing string onto another card. A small menu asks what you meant: extend the relationship to that card, so the same label now reaches every card it touches, or start a new relationship with its own label that hangs off the first one. The panel lists every card a relationship reaches under Connected to, each with a disconnect button; disconnecting the last card deletes the relationship. Deleting a relationship that has branches deletes the branches too, after asking.

Working with a string

A relationship type can be marked mutual (⇆), so it reads both ways and shows no direction. Connections to a Note are golden yarn with no label, direction, or confidence. Just a tie.

Rate confidence

On an investigation board, every relationship also carries how sure you are. Select a string and use the Confidence control in the panel: three levels, saved on the spot. New strings start at the level set under Settings → Red Strings(Uncertain out of the box).

The certainty is in the rhythm of the line, not its color, so it survives whatever color you've given the string and reads at a glance without a key. If you turn on Reduce Motion, the animated dashes become a solid line with direction chevrons, and confidence shows as line thickness instead (thicker is more certain). Confidence also flows through to exports and AI analysis, grouped so you can separate what's proven from what's still a thread to pull.

Get around

The faint dot grid is a visual reference only; cards don't snap to it, and it fades out as you zoom far out.

Navigate by keyboard

With a card selected, an arrow key selects a relationship that points in that direction. Press the arrow again to select the card at the other end. With a relationship selected, hold Shift and press an arrow key to select the nearest connected relationship label in that direction. After the first move, repeated presses stay with that card's relationships. If no connected relationship label is in that direction, the selection does not change. Shift+Comma and Shift+Period are alternatives forShift+Left Arrow and Shift+Right Arrow. Press any arrow with nothing selected to start from the card nearest the center. The view moves to keep the target on screen. A card with no relationships does not respond to an arrow key. Connect it first.

Tab moves focus into the side panel when it's open; with the panel closed it keeps focus on the selected card so the arrows keep working. Esc backs out one layer at a time: a decoration tool first, then the side panel, then the selection.

Pinned boards have their own keys: Ctrl+↓ walks into the selected pin's board and Ctrl+↑ returns to the parent.

Find anything

Press Ctrl+K (or Ctrl+F, the same box) to search the whole board. It looks across card names, subtitles, notes, sources, and tags, plus relationship labels and notes. Arrow through the results and press Enter to jump; the canvas centers on the match.

AI analysis Pro

Redstrings can reason over your board through Intelligence, a panel powered by your own Google Gemini key (bring-your-own-key). It's a Pro feature and it's off until you set it up. Once enabled, a brain button appears on the canvas to open it. The button also shows when the board has saved reports, so you can read them without Gemini.

How do I set it up?

1. Open Settings → Gemini.
2. Get a key from Google AI Studio, paste it in, and Save Key (it's encrypted on your machine).
3. Pick a model, then Test Connection. Once it passes, flip the switch to enable AI.

How do I use it?

Open the panel and switch to Ask. Type any question about your board; with Include board context on (the default), your cards and strings go along with the question, and a selected card is sent as the focus. The empty state offers preset prompts (Write Narrative, Analyze Structure,Find Gaps, Key Players, Key Insights); these are defaults you can add to, edit, delete, or reset under Settings → Prompt Library. Each answer has Copy,Save, and a Report link for flagging bad output.

Reports

Any answer worth keeping, hit Save to store it as a Report inside the board. Reports keep the prompt and the response, travel with your project when you export or share it, and open again from the Reports button in the panel. A connected MCP agent can save reports too; they show the agent as the author.

Your key and your board go straight to Google's Gemini API and nowhere else; Redstrings has no server in the middle. Redstrings also has an experimental local MCP server for working through a supported AI client. See below.

MCP server Pro · Experimental

The local MCP server lets a supported AI client, such as Claude or Cursor, work with the project you have open in Redstrings. The bundled server talks to the running app over standard input and output and a local loopback bridge on your machine; it does not send your board through a Redstrings server.

How do I connect a client?

1. Go to Settings → MCP Server and switch MCP on.
2. Click Copy configuration, then paste it into your MCP client's settings and restart or reconnect the client if it asks you to.
3. Open the project and board you want the agent to work on. That is the only project it can see.

The configuration carries no project path, so you set it up once. The agent always acts on whatever project and board are open in Redstrings and follows along when you switch. If Redstrings is closed, MCP is off, or no project or board is open, the agent gets an error that says which of those to fix.

What can it do?

Read tools see the live board, unsaved edits included: the board and a summary of it, a card with its relationships, search, the list of boards, the project tree, and the card types. Write tools create and edit boards, create project folders, move, rename, and re-parent boards and folders, pin a board onto another board or point a pin elsewhere, manage card types, attach a file to a card or create a card from a file, set a card's photo layout and fit, save an Intelligence report, and export a board image. Every write runs through the app's own commands, so it shows up on the canvas at once, autosaves as usual, and each batch is one Ctrl+Z step. A few writes can target a board that is not open (pinning, attaching a file, saving a report); those go straight to the board's file. Still, an AI client can change your project: review its work, and turn MCP off when you are done.

For a connected agent that can create a board from a brief or make an existing board easier to read, see Board Generation.

This feature is experimental. Client setup and tool support vary, so review the work while the agent is using your project.

Types, colors & themes Pro

Redstrings ships opinionated defaults; Pro lets you reshape them to your work.

Custom node & relationship types

Under Settings → Card Types you can add your own card types, rename them, set each type's Attachment mode, Allow URL, and photo layout and fit, filter and drag to reorder them, and give each an icon and color. Per type you also define its Red Strings: the label, the target type, the color, whether it's directional or mutual, and which one is suggested first. Those definitions drive the label suggestions you get when connecting cards. Deleting a type that's in use lets you reassign its cards to another type first. The Note type is not listed here; it has nothing to configure.

Icon & color picker

Click a type's colored icon to open its appearance: 10 preset swatches plus a custom color, and a grid of 41 icons. Set it once and every card of that type follows.

Themes

Under Settings → Themes, choose a board theme: Dark (the free default), Cork Board, Midnight, Noir, or Blueprint.

Export

Before exporting the PNG, choose the Area. Fit to contentis the default. It crops the image around the board elements, adds a small margin, and draws the selected board frame around the result. Full canvas framecaptures the entire fixed canvas. Current viewport captures only what you see. You can also choose the Resolution (1×, 2×, or 3×; 2× is the default) and the Background: the current board appearance, a solid color, or transparent.

The Markdown report includes a summary with counts, every card grouped by type (with subtitle, tags, notes, source, and its outgoing relationships and their confidence), and a full relationships table: From / Relationship / To / Confidence.

Share a project Pro

File → Share Project… publishes the open project to a link on share.redstrings.app. Anyone with the link can open it in a web browser without the app. Share is available on Mac and Windows.

How do I publish?

1. Sign in. Click Sign in in browser. Enter your email, then the code it sends you. There is no password. Choose Connect Redstrings, then go back to the app.
2. Prepare. Click Prepare project. Redstrings saves the project and shows what goes up: boards, cards, saved reports, attachments, and the upload size.
3. Choose the options. All of them start off.
   • Show in the public library lists the project on share.redstrings.app under an Author name you choose. Your email never shows.
   • Allow search engines lets search engines list it. The link works either way.
   • Switch on the last option to confirm that the whole project becomes public.
4. Publish. Click Publish project, then Copy link.

Visitors see the whole project: every board and folder, cards with their notes, sources, tags, links, and photos, strings, decorations, saved reports, and attached files. The board you have open when you publish is the first one they see. The project opens in your theme.

Read the project before you publish. Nothing is hidden or removed, and anyone with the link can pass it on.

How do I update or remove it?

Open File → Share Project… again in the same project. Click Update public copy to replace the public version with your latest changes. The link stays the same. Click Unpublish to take it down; the link stops working within about a minute.

What do visitors get?

Visitors can move things around and try edits, but nothing they change is saved. Reloading the page brings back your published copy. Shared projects need a desktop or laptop screen; phones get a message to open the link on a larger screen. A visitor can report a project with Help → Report Board… on the shared page.

What are the limits?

• Share works on projects only. If you have a single board file open, the dialog offers Convert to Project first. The original file stays where it is.
• The whole upload can be up to 96 MB, and each photo or file up to 8 MB.
• Attachments can be images (PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF), PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, TXT, CSV, or JSON. Other file types stop the publish.
• If a card uses a missing card type or a missing file, the dialog names the cards so you can fix them.

Settings

Open with Ctrl+, or the gear in the top-right. The sidebar splits into Free and Pro:

The menu bar's Help menu opens this guide (User Guide), Send Feedback…, a link to the project's issue tracker, and Console Log, the app's log since launch. Copy the log when you report a problem. The File Browser's footer has the same guide link.

Right-click menus

Right-clicking is a shortcut to almost everything. It selects the card or string under the cursor first. Decorations have no menu of their own; right-clicking one opens the empty-canvas menu.

Ctrl+right-click does not open a menu. On Mac, Ctrl+click does not open it either; use a right-click or two-finger click. ⌘+click is multi-select.

Every shortcut

On Mac, ⌘ replaces Ctrl and Option replaces Alt. This page is the reference; the app's Help menu links here. Single-key shortcuts like N, E, and Del pause while you're typing in a field.

Pro features

Free covers the whole core: unlimited boards and cards, all built-in types and relationships, every board size, confidence, search, keyboard navigation, board decorations, and .redstring, image, and Markdown export. Pro is a one-time purchase with no subscription through the app store you installed from, with Restore Purchase if you reinstall. It adds:

Project files stay on your computer by default. The core board works offline. Gemini analysis sends selected board content and your API key directly to Google when you run it. MCP gives the connected AI client access to the project you have open. If that client uses a cloud model, it sends any Redstrings information it reads to a third-party model provider. Review the client's privacy terms before you connect it. Share Project uploads the whole project to share.redstrings.app and needs a free Redstrings Share account. Web links, store purchases, and purchase restoration also use the internet.