Account, sync, and updates
The Account page is where you sign in, see your plan, and activate a license — and it's the gateway to Cloud Sync. This page also covers Intranet (LAN) sync for pairing your phone, InkSpoke's automatic updates, and where your settings and keys are stored.
The Account page
Open Settings (right-click the tray icon → Settings, or double-click the tray icon), then choose Account at the bottom of the left sidebar. The page is a stack of cards that adapts to whether you're signed in, on a trial, or using a perpetual license.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Account ⟳ Refresh │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ( JS ) Jamie Smith [ Pro trial ] │ ← avatar, name, tier chip
│ jamie@example.com │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Pro trial ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇░░░░░ 12 min left │ │ ← trial audio meter
│ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Cloud Sync [ Off ●── ] │ │
│ │ This device · not yet synced │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Perpetual License │ │
│ │ [ XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX ] [ Activate ] │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ [ Send Diagnostic Report ] [ Sign out ]│
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The Refresh button in the header re-fetches your account state from the InkSpoke Platform, so you can pull in a plan change or a fresh trial balance without restarting.
Signing in
Signing in links this device to your InkSpoke account, unlocks Pro entitlements you've purchased, and is required before you can turn on cloud sync.
- On the Account page, click Sign In.
- InkSpoke opens your web browser to complete authentication (single sign-on via a secure PKCE flow). Sign in there — including with Google SSO if you use it.
- The browser hands the session back to the desktop app. Your avatar, display name, email, and tier chip now appear on the Account page.
InkSpoke never asks for your password inside the desktop app. Authentication happens in your browser and only a scoped token comes back, which is safer and lets you reuse an existing web session.
Using InkSpoke without an account
You don't have to sign in to dictate. When you're signed out, the Account page shows a Device ID card instead of your profile:
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Device ID │
│ d3v1ce-9f2a-…-7c41 [ Copy ] │
│ This device is not signed in. │
│ [ Sign In ] [ Go Pro ] │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
This device ID is an anonymous fingerprint that identifies your machine to the Platform (for example, so your Pro trial is tracked) without a login. You can Copy it if support asks for it. Everything local — dictation, workspaces, history — works fully signed-out; only account-linked features (cloud sync, purchased Pro entitlements) need sign-in.
Cloud Sync only becomes available once you're truly authenticated — a device-only user can't push data to the cloud. That's deliberate: it guarantees you always have a way to recover synced data with your account.
Your plan: tier, trial, and Go Pro
A tier chip next to your name shows your current plan — Free, Pro, Perpetual, or Expired.
The Pro trial meter
New users get a Pro trial so you can try refinement and Pro features right away. On desktop the trial is measured as an audio allowance, not a countdown — the meter shows how much dictation time you have left, with a progress bar. When it runs out, the card switches to an amber trial-expired notice.
The trial is a Pro trial with an audio allowance rather than a fixed number of days. For exactly what's included and how the trial differs between desktop and mobile, see The free trial.
Go Pro
When you're eligible to upgrade, a Go Pro card appears. Clicking it opens your browser to complete the purchase — subscriptions and licenses are bought on the web (via Stripe), not inside the app. After you buy, hit Refresh on the Account page (or restart) to pull in your new tier.
Purchases always happen on the InkSpoke website. There's no in-app checkout on desktop, so use Go Pro (which opens the browser) or visit inkspoke.app/pricing. See Subscriptions and licenses for the details.
Activating a perpetual license
If you bought a Perpetual (one-time) license, you activate it here with your license key. The Perpetual License card is always visible, signed in or not.
- Enter your key in the
XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXfield. - Click Activate.
- On success, the card switches to an activated view showing a masked key (only a short prefix is displayed), a copy-prefix button, and a Remove button to deactivate on this device. If the key is wrong, an inline error explains why.
A perpetual license is a one-time purchase plus key activation per device — activate the same key on each machine you use.
Sign out
Sign out (the red button at the bottom of the Account page) unlinks this device from your account. Your local data stays on the machine; you just stop syncing and lose access to account-gated Pro features until you sign back in.
Cloud Sync (end-to-end encrypted)
Cloud Sync keeps your workspaces and settings consistent across your signed-in devices by syncing them through the InkSpoke Platform — end-to-end encrypted, so the servers only ever store ciphertext they can't read.
- It's off by default (
CloudSyncEnabled = false). Turn it on with the Cloud Sync toggle on the Account page. This is a privacy-first, opt-in choice. - It requires sign-in. The toggle only works once you're authenticated.
- How it merges: changes reconcile with a last-writer-wins strategy, so the most recent edit to an item wins.
- Your encryption key (the user sync key) is generated on your device and held in your OS keychain — it never travels to the server in a readable form.
Signed in on the web, you can unlock your encrypted sync data with your API key, inspect it, and delete all synced data if you want a clean slate. See Synced data and privacy.
Intranet (LAN) sync for mobile
Intranet Sync lets your phone pull and push workspace data directly from your computer over your local network — no cloud round-trip. It runs a small local server on the desktop that paired mobile devices connect to.
Find it under Settings → Configuration → Intranet Sync (a different place from Cloud Sync, which lives on the Account page).
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Intranet Sync │
│ Enable local server [ Off ●── ] │
│ Auto-start on launch [ Off ●── ] │
│ Server status: ● Running · port 5xxxx │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ ▄▄▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄▄▄ │ │
│ │ █ ▄ █ ▀█▀ █ ▄ █ Scan to pair │ │
│ │ █▄▄▄█ ▄▄▄ █▄▄▄█ │ │
│ │ [ Dismiss ] │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ Paired Devices │
│ • Jamie's iPhone iOS synced 2m ago [Revoke]
│ • (no other devices) │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
To pair a phone:
- Turn on Enable local server. (Optionally enable Auto-start on launch so it comes up with the app.) The Server status badge shows Running and the port it's listening on.
- Click Pair New Device to show a QR code.
- In the InkSpoke mobile app, scan the QR code. The two devices perform an ECDH key exchange so the connection is authenticated and encrypted, and your phone finds the desktop automatically on the network via mDNS discovery.
- The phone appears in the Paired Devices list with its name, platform, and last-sync time.
To unpair, click Revoke next to a device — it can no longer sync until you pair it again.
Intranet Sync only works when your desktop and phone are on the same local network. For the full mobile-side walkthrough, see Syncing mobile with desktop.
Automatic updates
InkSpoke keeps itself current using Velopack. On every startup it checks GitHub Releases for a newer stable version and downloads it in the background; you don't need to hunt for a "check for updates" button.
- Only stable releases are offered — pre-release builds are skipped.
- Updating is automatic on launch; there's nothing to configure.
- The check is skipped when the app isn't running from an installed build (for example, a developer running from source), which is expected.
Where your settings and keys live
Your preferences are saved to a plain-text settings.json in your InkSpoke app-data folder
(%AppData%\InkSpoke\settings.json on Windows; the equivalent app-support folder on macOS and
Linux). It uses camelCase keys and stores enums as readable strings, and InkSpoke runs ordered
schema migrations on load so an older file upgrades cleanly.
Provider API keys and your sync encryption key are stored in your OS keychain — macOS
Keychain, Windows Credential Manager, or the Linux Secret Service — never in settings.json.
If you back up or copy your settings file, no credentials come with it.
Settings at a glance
| Setting | Where | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
Cloud Sync (CloudSyncEnabled) | Account | Off | Opt-in, end-to-end-encrypted sync of workspaces and settings (requires sign-in). |
Intranet Sync (IntranetSyncEnabled) | Configuration → Intranet Sync | Off | Runs the local LAN server so paired phones can sync. |
Auto-start on launch (IntranetSyncAutoStart) | Configuration → Intranet Sync | Off | Starts the LAN server automatically when InkSpoke launches. |
| Perpetual license | Account | — | Activate a one-time license key on this device. |
| Sign in / Sign out | Account | Signed out | Links this device to your account (browser SSO). |
Next steps
- Subscriptions and licenses — buy Pro or a perpetual license on the web.
- Syncing mobile with desktop — pair and sync your phone over the LAN.
- Synced data and privacy — view or delete your encrypted synced data from the web.
- History and diagnostics — what the Send Diagnostic Report card collects.