Offline Mode — How KnotWise Works at Sea

KnotWise is built offline-first: once you have signed in, the app runs without an internet connection. This article explains what works offline, what does not, and what happens on a long passage when the connection is gone for weeks.

What works offline

• Creating, editing and viewing log entries and passages
• Crew, animals on board, maintenance and inventory
• The map and your route history — for the tiles you downloaded beforehand
• Emergency, Safety and the VHF reference
• All 16 navigation calculators, including the celestial ones
• Local backup and restore
• PDF, CSV and GPX exports — generated on the device, nothing is sent anywhere

Your logbook lives in a database on the device. Nothing is lost when the connection drops, and nothing waits for a server: KnotWise behaves the same online and offline.

What needs a connection

• Signing in the first time — you receive a one-time code by email, so the first sign-in on a device has to happen while you are online. Do it before you leave.
• Subscribing or changing your plan
• Syncing between devices and anything that reads from the KnotWise Cloud, including share links
• Downloading map tiles you have not cached yet

On a long passage — when the session expires

Sign-ins do not last forever. On a crossing of several weeks the session can expire while you are at sea. KnotWise is built for that, and the behaviour is deliberate:

• You are never signed out automatically. An expired session does not close the app or hide your logbook.
• Everything local stays available and editable — entries, passages, crew, maintenance, inventory, the cached map.
• Features from your paid plan keep working, because the plan is read from the device, not from the server.
• Cloud sync pauses and a discreet banner appears: «Session expired — connect to re-authenticate and resume sync.»

When you are back within reach of a connection, KnotWise renews the session by itself. If it has been too long for that, you sign in again with a one-time code — and everything you logged in the meantime syncs then.

Coming back online

Sync runs automatically in the background — there is no button to press. Changes made on several devices while offline are merged; if the same entry was edited on two devices, the most recently saved version wins. Details: Syncing your logbook — advanced guide.

Last updated: 28 July 2026