BrainJam

How it works

A shared whiteboard for quick brainstorms. Write notes privately, then drop them on the canvas for everyone.

The basics, in four steps

1
Create a board
Give it a title and give yourself a name. You land straight on the canvas — no signup, no account.
2
Write your notes privately
Notes you add in the My notes sidebar are yours alone. Nobody else on the board can see them until you decide to share.
3
Drag a note onto the canvas to share it
The moment it lands, everyone sees it appear. That is the only way a private note becomes public.
4
Arrange, group, and merge
Move notes around to cluster related ideas. Drop one note on top of another to merge them into a single note.

Invite people

Every board has a six-character code, shown next to the title at the top of the screen. Click it to copy — it copies the code itself, not a link, so you can paste it straight into a chat. Sharing the board's URL works just as well.

Up to seven people can be on a board at once. Names are up to 35 characters and have to be unique on that board. Coloured chips in the header show who is here; a grey dot means someone has gone quiet, and Reconnecting… means your own connection dropped and is recovering.

The × on your own chip leaves the board. The ×on someone else's removes them from it. Neither asks for confirmation.

If someone's slot goes stale

A slot frees up roughly 15 seconds after someone closes their tab. From the home page you can look the board up by its code and claim a free slot.

Claiming a slot takes over that person's place on the board, including any notes they never shared. If you leave using the × on your own chip, your unshared drafts go with you — everything you already put on the canvas stays.

Writing notes

Private drafts

+ Add private note in the sidebar creates a draft and puts the cursor in it. Notes hold up to 500 characters. Press Ctrl / ⌘ + Enter to finish one, or add Shift to finish it and start the next straight away.

Need the room? Collapse the sidebar with the chevron in its corner — it shrinks to a thin My notes rail you can click to bring back.

Straight to the canvas

If there is no private phase, skip the sidebar entirely: + Add public note in the top-left of the canvas drops a note where you are looking and opens it ready to type.

Colour and size

Every note carries its own colour, shown as a dot in its header. Click that dot and a picker opens with all seven — — pick one to recolour the note. New notes start yellow.

Colour is per note, not per person, so two people can happily use the same one. The colours assigned automatically are the player colours: your chip in the header and your pointer on the canvas.

Notes on the canvas can be resized by dragging the bottom-right corner — anywhere from 120 to 600 wide and 80 to 600 tall. Until you resize one, its height grows to fit whatever you type.

Moving around the canvas

The canvas is bigger than your screen. Zoom between 25% and 250% with the control in the bottom-right corner, and click the percentage to snap back to 100%. Scroll to move around; hold Ctrl / ⌘ while scrolling to zoom instead.

You will also see everyone else's pointer as they work, labelled with their name in their own colour.

Lost a note? Press 1, or use Fit — the rightmost button on the zoom control. It zooms and re-centres so every note is visible at once, including any dragged off the edge of the screen.

Working with several notes at once

Drag across empty canvas to rubber-band a group of notes. Shift + click adds or removes one note from the selection. With two or more selected, dragging any of them moves the whole group. Esc clears the selection.

Shared with everyone

Once a note is on the canvas it belongs to the board, not to you. Anyone can edit its text, move it, recolour it, resize it or delete it. That is the point — it is a whiteboard, and everyone is holding a pen.

Merging

Drop one note onto another and the two become one: the target keeps its place, the dropped note's text is added underneath, and the dropped note disappears. It only works between two notes that are already on the canvas — dragging a private note onto a public one simply places it.

One step back. Merges and deletions happen immediately, for everyone — but Ctrl / ⌘ + Z undoes the last one you did, and a bar appears at the bottom of the canvas with an Undo button for as long as the offer stands. It covers deleted notes on both sides — the canvas and your private sidebar — and the last merge you made.

It goes one step deep, it only covers your own actions, and it is gone if you reload the page. If someone else has edited the merged note in the meantime, the undo refuses rather than overwriting their words — so treat it as a way back from a mis-click, not a licence to delete other people's work.

Ways to use it

Team brainstorm

The classic. Everyone writes privately first, then shares on the canvas together, explaining each note briefly as it lands. Patterns show up as the canvas fills, and merging collapses the duplicates. Agree the length of the quiet phase out loud before you start — there is no timer built in.

Shared whiteboard

Skip the private phase. Share the code and have everyone use + Add public note so ideas are visible the moment they are written. Good for retros, planning poker, or any freeform discussion.

Solo

You don't need a team. Use a board as a personal thinking space — a task list, a decision board, or a lightweight kanban with three loose columns for To do, Doing and Done. There is nothing to configure; just put notes where they belong.

Shortcuts and gestures

This list is on the board itself too — click the ? button in the top right. Keyboard shortcuts work while you are not typing in a note.

Zoom and pan the canvas

Zoom in and out: Ctrl/⌘+Scroll
Zoom in and out on a trackpad: Pinch
Move around the canvas: Scroll
Move sideways: Shift+Scroll
Drag the canvas around: Middle-mouse drag
Zoom in one step: +
Zoom out one step: −
Back to 100%: 0
Fit every note on screen: 1

Select and arrange notes

Add a note where you click: Double-click empty canvas
Select several notes at once: Drag on empty canvas
Add or remove one note from the selection: Shift+Click
Select every note on the board: Ctrl/⌘+A
Move the whole selection: Drag a selected note
Nudge the selection: Arrow keys
Nudge the selection further: Shift+Arrow keys
Duplicate the selection: Ctrl/⌘+D
Delete the selection: Delete
Merge two notes into one: Drop a note onto another
Clear the selection: Esc
Resize a note on the canvas: Drag its bottom-right corner
Recolour a note: Click its colour dot
Recolour or delete several at once: Use the selection bar
Delete a note: Click ✕
Undo your last delete or merge: Ctrl/⌘+Z

Vote on notes

Start a round, and choose the dots each: Start voting
Give a note one of your dots: Click its dot
Take your dot back: Click it again
See how many dots you have left: Top-left of the canvas
Stop voting and freeze the counts: End voting
Run another round — clears the dots: New round
Hand everyone their dots back and vote again: ⋯+Reset dots
Clear every dot and take voting off the board: ⋯+Remove voting

Find a note

Jump to the search box: Ctrl/⌘+F
Go to the next match: Enter
Go to the previous match: Shift+Enter
Clear the search: Esc

Write notes

Shared canvas: stop editing a note and save your text: Ctrl/⌘+Enter
Private sidebar: finish editing the current note: Ctrl/⌘+Enter
Private sidebar: finish editing and start a new note: Ctrl/⌘+Shift+Enter
Shared canvas: discard your edit and keep the previous text: Esc

Limits and lifespan

Finding your way back

There are no accounts, so nothing is tied to an email address. This browser remembers the last five boards you visited and lists them on the home page. Beyond that, bookmark the link or keep the code — with neither, there is no way to find the board again.

How long boards last

A board is deleted once it has gone 120 days with nobody joining and no note edited. Active boards stay put.

The numbers

Characters per note: 500
Characters in a board title: 60
Characters in your name: 35
People on a board at once: 7
Note size on the canvas: 120–600 × 80–600
New boards per hour, per network: 5

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