Decide who sees what

Who can see a node

Right under the title of a document, the Visible to field answers the question before you share anything. It shows the audience's glyph and then:

• your own name when only you can see it,
• one person's name, or a face per person when a few people can, with a count past a handful,
• Everyone, or the space's name, when the audience is everyone in the workspace or in that space,
• Anyone with the link after that, when link sharing is on in Tana.

Hover the field for the audience in words: Visible only to you, Visible to selected people, Visible to space members (named, as in “Visible to members of Studio LT”) or Visible to everyone. The same words are used wherever Orbital describes an audience.

In a list, each row's grey line says the same in short: the glyph and the faces, or the audience's words. When the audience comes from the space or the page a node lives in, a change there shows on its rows at once.

Click the field, or press ↩ or Space on it, to change who can see the node. On a meeting's write-up it changes the meeting's audience. A sensitive page, a chat and a saved search have no Visible to field; a chat says who can see it in one grey line at its top.

Change who can see it

Run Edit visibility in ⌘K (under Current node), or click the Visible to field. It offers what Tana lets you set on this node:

• Only me: private to you.
• Selected people …: you pick who.
• Inherit: Visible to members of Studio LT: whoever can see the space the node lives in. The row names that audience.

A choice Orbital cannot check with Tana is not offered, and a row that cannot run yet says why.

Selected people …

Lists the people in your workspace, with those who can already see the node first. Type to narrow, ↩ ticks or unticks a person, and Apply selected people saves the list. Back to visibility returns to the three choices. Add participants … in ⌘K goes straight to this list.

Assigning someone who can't see it

Assign a task to someone outside its audience and Orbital asks at once, the way Tana does: “Tomas Ilves can't see this”.

• Grant access (↩) shares the task with them.
• Keep private (esc) leaves the audience as it is.
• Cancel takes the assignment back.

When the audience comes from a space, Grant access is greyed: widening it is the space's business, so move the task instead.

Whatever you answered, someone assigned but shut out stays visible as a dashed + Name pill in Visible to. Click the pill to share the task with that person.

Move it to a space, or to the Library

Where a node lives decides who can see it when it inherits its audience. Move to … lists your spaces and the Library, and folds them into ⌘K itself: type move to studio and Move to Studio LT is right there. Move to Library takes the node out of its space.

Before anything moves, Orbital shows who can see the node now and who will afterwards, as two grey lines: Before: who can see it now, and After: who will, each an audience such as “Visible to everyone”. Then choose Move to … or Cancel.

A move is checked with Tana first: you need to be able to write in both places, a node cannot go inside itself, and a type always lives in a space. What cannot be checked is greyed, never guessed. Like visibility, a move is not undone with ⌘Z: move it back.

Delete, restore and archive

Delete in ⌘K deletes the node you are on, or the rows you selected. ⇧⌘⌫ does the same for the node under the caret or the selected blocks. Tana keeps what you delete, so ⌘Z brings it straight back. On a node you cannot change, Delete is greyed with “Read-only”. If the page on screen is deleted, here or elsewhere, the pane goes back to where you were before.

Recently deleted

Lists what you deleted, newest first, with how long ago. Type to narrow it; ↩ restores the node and opens it. Orbital keeps this list on this Mac for a month, up to 25 nodes. Something deleted while Orbital was closed is not on it.

Archive type and Archived types

A type is archived, never deleted: on a type, Archive type takes it out of every list and picker, and its nodes keep it. Archived types lists them; ↩ unarchives one and opens it. ⌘Z undoes an archive too.

Copy link and Open in Tana

Copy link ⌘C copies the node's link on home.tana.inc, the one Tana itself would give you. With text selected, ⌘C copies the text as usual; with nothing selected it copies the link. The tab's menu has Copy link for the page's own node. On the Timeline, right-click a meeting (or select it) and Copy link copies the meeting's link; on any other entry, the link of the node it is about.

Open in Tana opens that link in Tana's web app, for anything Orbital does not do. On a meeting, Join call opens its call link.

A link that opens in Orbital rather than the browser is orbital: followed by the node's id, the part after the last / of its Tana link with %3A read as :: orbital:tana:text:01m3whces7vjn513ztgb2zqe1b. It opens that node on the Mac, the iPhone and Android.

Keep sensitive nodes hidden

Some nodes should not be readable on a shared screen: a salary review, a health note. Mark as sensitive in ⌘K hides the node's words everywhere they appear: its row, its title, chips, links and mentions of it in other notes, its entries on the Timeline, tooltips. Grey bars stand where the words were. A sensitive node also stops saying who can see it, and its tab reads “Hidden”. Unmark as sensitive takes the mark off. With rows selected, the row reads Mark 3 items as sensitive.

The eye, or Toggle sensitive visibility

The eye in the window's header shows sensitive nodes, and hides them again. The crossed eye means sensitive nodes are hidden. Toggle sensitive visibility in ⌘K does the same, its hint saying Hidden or Shown.

The marks follow you to your other Macs. Whether they are shown does not: showing them on your laptop never shows them on the office screen. This Mac remembers the eye's position until you switch it back. Sensitive nodes are never sent to a model for translation or anything else.

Demo mode

For showing Orbital to someone without showing your work. Toggle demo mode in ⌘K (hint On or Off) swaps everything that came from Tana for made-up words, on screen only.

• Each word becomes one made-up word, capitals kept, and the same node always reads the same, so the page still looks real.
• People get a made-up name with as many words. Pictures become grey boxes with a privacy mark, and do not open.
• Orbital's own words stay as they are: view and page titles, headings, commands, types, dates and field options.
• Nothing is saved. Rows cannot be edited, checkboxes are off, and anything that would write to Tana says “Demo mode is on: nothing is saved to Tana”. Quick Add Task does not open, and no notification banners appear.

It switches every window at once, and this Mac remembers it until you turn it off.

Hide titles you never want to see

Some things you never need in a list: an agent's daily output, a recurring note. Edit hidden items keeps a list of titles that every view and every search skips.

Type a title and press ↩ on Hide "…". A whole title matches exactly (Exact); end it with * to match every title that starts that way (Prefix). Case does not matter. Your patterns are listed below the field; ↩ on one unhides it. The list follows you to your other Macs and to Orbital on your phone, whose Timeline and saved searches skip the same titles.

A hidden node is only left out of lists. Open it from a link and it opens as usual.

Toggle MCP chats

Chats that other tools start through Tana's MCP connection can crowd your lists. Toggle MCP chats hides them from every list and search, and shows them again; its hint says Hidden or Shown.

Keys in this chapter