How to Use Flockdraw: The Complete Guide to Every Tool

Flockdraw is deliberately simple — most people never need this page. But every tool on the board has a few details worth knowing, and they are all here: rooms, drawing tools, colors, images, history, and the three ways to save your work.

Rooms: Creating, Sharing, and Presence

Everything on Flockdraw happens in a room — a canvas with its own random URL like flockdraw.com/draw/k3x9m2ab. Clicking Start Drawing creates a fresh room instantly.

  • Share Link copies the room URL to your clipboard. Anyone who opens it joins the same canvas — there are no accounts or permissions to manage.
  • The active counter next to Share Link shows how many people are currently in the room.
  • Rooms persist. Return to the same URL later and the drawing is still there (uploaded images excepted — see below). Bookmark a room to keep a long-running canvas.
  • Room privacy is link privacy. Links are unguessable and unlisted, but anyone who has one can draw. Share accordingly.

The Drawing Tools

Brush

Freehand drawing. The Size slider (1–80) controls stroke width. Works with a mouse, stylus, or finger — the canvas is fully touch-enabled.

Eraser

Erases whatever it passes over, at the same adjustable size as the brush. Erasing is itself a synced action — everyone sees it. Picking any color switches you back to the brush automatically.

Line, Rectangle, and Ellipse

Click and drag to place a shape; you see a live preview until you release. The Fill dropdown fills rectangles and ellipses with your current color, white, or charcoal — or leaves them as outlines. Stroke thickness follows the Size slider.

Text

Select the text tool, set a size (10–120), and click the canvas to open a text box. Type, then press Enter to place it — or Esc to cancel. Use text for anything that must stay legible: titles, labels, scores.

Colors and Backgrounds

  • Preset palette: ten swatches — teal, orange, red, purple, blue, green, yellow, pink, black, and white — one click each. In group sessions, assigning one color per person keeps contributions attributable.
  • Custom color: the eyedropper swatch opens a full color picker for any hex value.
  • Background: the Background button recolors the canvas itself, for everyone in the room. The background is separate from drawings — changing it never erases anything, and your exported image includes it.

Adding Images to the Board

Click Upload or drag files straight onto the canvas. PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP, and SVG all work, and large images are scaled down automatically. Use imported images to trace, annotate screenshots, or remix photos.

One deliberate limitation to know: uploads stay local to your browser. They are never sent to the server, which means other participants do not see them and they disappear on refresh or Clear. This is a privacy feature — your photos never leave your device. To preserve a combined result (image plus drawing), export the board as a PNG.

Undo, Redo, and Clear

  • Undo removes your most recent change — stroke, shape, text, or background change — without touching anyone else's work. Press it repeatedly to step further back.
  • Redo restores what you just undid.
  • Clear wipes the entire room for everyone, after a confirmation. It cannot be undone, so export first. In group sessions, treat Clear as a group decision.

Saving Your Work: Three Ways

1. Export as image (PNG or JPG)

Choose the format in the dropdown, then click Export. You get a finished picture of the visible board, background included — right from your own browser, so it also captures your local image uploads.

2. Save project (JSON)

Save Project downloads the board's actual drawing events as a file. Unlike an image, a project can be re-imported and continued. Think photo versus original working file.

3. Import project

Import Project loads a saved JSON file into the current room, recreating every stroke, shape, and text element so you (and everyone in the room) can keep working on it.

The room itself also persists at its URL, so for casual use, bookmarking the link is saving.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I invite someone to my room?

Click the Share Link button at the top of the drawing board to copy the room's URL, then send it to anyone. Opening the link puts them directly on your canvas.

Why did my uploaded image disappear after refreshing?

Uploaded images are intentionally kept local to your browser for privacy — they are never stored on the server, so they do not persist across refreshes and other participants do not receive them. Export the board as a PNG if you want to keep the combined result.

Does undo remove other people's strokes?

No. Undo removes your own most recent change, so each participant can fix their own mistakes without affecting anyone else's work. Redo restores what you undid.

What is the difference between exporting an image and saving a project?

Export produces a finished PNG or JPG picture of the board. Save Project produces a JSON file containing the drawing's actual events, which you can import into a room later to continue editing — like the difference between a photo and the original file.

Now Put It to Work

The Best Way to Learn Is to Draw

Open a board and try each tool — the whole tour takes about two minutes.

Open the Drawing Board