Where diagrams are stored

Every diagram has exactly one storage mode, and that mode decides where its bytes live. The current mode is shown in the editor’s toolbar, on the button that opens the storage panel.

Signing in to nifdi does not put your diagrams on our servers. A diagram reaches nifdi’s infrastructure only when you move it there.

The modes

Mode	Where the diagram lives
local-browser	Your browser’s storage, on this device
local-file	A .nifdi.svg file on your disk
nifdi-cloud	Nifdi’s servers
local-workspace	A file in your project directory, served by the nifdi MCP server

Three of the four are local. Only nifdi-cloud involves our servers.

Local by default

A diagram you create in the editor starts in local-browser. It is written to your browser’s storage on the device you created it on, which means:

• The diagram’s contents are not sent to nifdi.
• It is not visible to anyone else, and there is no link that would reach it.
• It is not available on your other devices.
• It lasts as long as your browser’s storage does. Clearing site data removes it.

That last point cuts both ways: local storage is private, but it is not a backup. Download a copy, or move the diagram to the cloud, for anything you would mind losing.

Moving a diagram to the cloud

Cloud diagrams are part of nifdi Pro. With Pro, the storage panel offers Move to cloud and Copy to cloud for a local-browser diagram. Move retires the original browser-stored diagram; copy leaves it where it is. Either way you end up in a new cloud diagram with its own id.

Once a diagram is in the cloud:

• Its contents are stored on our servers.
• You can open it from your other devices.
• Only you can open it.
• Your agent can reach it over the hosted MCP server, once you connect the agent and sign in.

The local cache

A diagram’s mode says which copy is authoritative, not that it is the only copy. Except in local-workspace, every save also writes the rendered diagram to your browser’s storage — cloud diagrams included. So a cloud diagram you have opened leaves a cached copy on that device, and a diagram you move to the cloud does not stop being present in browser storage.

The cache is per-device and private to your browser, and clearing site data removes it. But if your reason for moving a diagram to the cloud is to get it off a particular machine, move it and then clear nifdi’s site data on that machine.

Moving back

A cloud diagram’s panel offers Move to browser and Copy to browser. Copy leaves the cloud diagram in place. Move revokes it: the diagram is removed from your account and from the listing, and your agents can no longer reach it.

Move is removal of access rather than erasure. The room backing a cloud diagram keeps its stored edits and assets after the diagram is removed from your account, so treat Move to browser as “nobody can reach this any more”, not as a guarantee that the bytes are gone.

Files on disk

Opening a .nifdi.svg from your disk puts the diagram in local-file mode, and edits are saved back to that same file as you work. This needs the File System Access API, which today means Chrome and other Chromium browsers.

The file is the diagram. Nifdi remembers where it is so it can appear in your diagram list, but removing it from that list only forgets the location — the file itself stays on your disk.

Local files cannot currently be transferred to another mode from the storage panel.

Workspace files

When an agent drives nifdi through the MCP server, diagrams are files in the workspace the server was started in, and the mode is local-workspace. The storage panel shows the path of the file backing the open diagram. These diagrams never leave your machine; the server runs locally and serves the editor from there.