Working offline
What you can do in airplane mode, including plans and Preflight, how the sync banner keeps you posted, and the few actions that need a connection.
Limbo works in airplane mode. Trips, plans, votes, Pitch In jobs, and your last loaded Preflight are stored on your phone, so mid-flight, on a ferry, or deep in a national park, you can keep planning and queue changes for sync.
Upcoming trips are prepared for offline use from Home. For a past trip, open it online before you rely on it offline so Limbo can cache its plan content. If that content has not been loaded on this device, the trip shows Not available offline instead of a misleading empty itinerary.
Offline mode doesn't change permissions: every crew member keeps the same view or edit access they have online.
What works offline
All of this works with no connection at all, and your changes show up on screen instantly:
| Area | What you can do offline |
|---|---|
| Trips | Create, edit, archive, and permanently delete archived trips (organizers only for deletion) |
| Plans | Add, edit, and delete plans of every type |
| Preflight | Complete or reopen tasks, snooze them for seven days, remove them, and add removed tasks back |
| Voting | Cast, change, or withdraw your vote on any open ballot |
| Crew | Add and edit crew members |
| Settle up | Record a settlement, and edit who paid on an existing plan |
| Voting settings | Owners can change the trip's voting rules, saved locally, synced later |
| Pitch In | Claim an open task; complete or reopen your own assignment; editors can also add, assign, and delete tasks |
Each change is saved on your phone and queued. The queue survives closing the app, restarting your phone, and days without signal.
The banner
A compact cloud near the bottom of the screen tells you where things stand. On Home it sits immediately beside Add trip; inside a trip it moves into the corner that Add trip leaves free. Tap it once to expand the status. Tap it again to sync or open the review panel.
- Airplane mode. You're offline. Below it, Limbo says Saved safely on this device, or shows a count like 3 changes saved · Tap again for details.
- Syncing 3 changes… You're back online and Limbo is sending your queued changes.
- 3 changes ready. Tap again to sync. You're online with changes still queued.
- 1 conflict needs review. Tap again to choose a version. Limbo needs you to choose between your saved edit and the server version.
- 1 change needs attention. Tap again to review or retry. A queued change could not sync and remains available for recovery.
- ✓ All synced. Everything went through. This flashes briefly, then slides away.
When there's nothing to report, there's no banner.
Tap the expanded control again whenever it shows saved, failed, or conflicting work. The Offline sync panel lists a safe summary of what's waiting, like "Update plan" or "Create trip", plus counts for pending, failed, and conflicts. If you're online and changes are waiting, tap Sync now to push them immediately.
When edits collide
If you and a crew member both edit the same thing while one of you is offline, Limbo normally reconciles the latest server state automatically. If your choice is needed, the floating control changes to 1 conflict needs review instead of saying everything is synced. Open the Offline sync panel to see Review item conflict or Review plan conflict with two explicit actions:
- Use server discards that queued local edit and reloads the server version.
- Keep mine keeps the local edit, moves the same queued change back to pending, and retries it through the normal sync path.
The decision is saved before the conflict disappears, so closing and reopening Limbo cannot leave a hidden conflict behind. If saving the choice fails, the conflict stays visible rather than pretending it was resolved.
If a queued vote can't be accepted by the server, say the ballot resolved while you were offline, your vote is rolled back on your device rather than silently miscounted, and the failed change appears in the panel until the queue settles.
Tip
What needs a connection
A few things are online-only by nature:
- Joining a trip: invite codes are checked live, so the join screen shows a "needs a connection" state while you're offline. Creating or revoking an invite link (trip owner only) also needs a connection. See Join a trip.
- Ballot overrides: organizer Decide now and Reopen voting act on the whole crew's ballot in real time, so they require a connection. Casting your own vote still works offline.
- Chat: messages, polls, and reactions are realtime-only. You can't send while offline; the conversation catches up when you reconnect. See Trip chat basics.
- AI tools: activity suggestions and plans parsed from forwarded emails are generated on Limbo's servers.
- Copying or moving plans between trips: both trips must update together, so these bulk actions ask you to reconnect. Selecting and deleting plans still works offline.
- Reactivating an archived trip: restoring a trip and all its plans for the crew needs a connection. Archiving and permanent deletion still work offline.
- An uncached past trip: connect and open it once to load its plan content. Past trips already cached on this device remain available offline. The first Preflight load for a trip also needs a connection. Once its score and tasks have been cached on the device, you can update them offline.
Note
Related articles
Join a trip with an invite link or code
Tap an invite link or enter a 6-character code to preview a trip and join the crew.
How group voting works
Turn plans into proposals, vote yes, no, or abstain, and see the reveal when the ballot closes.
Understand who owes whom
Use Balances to see your position, a simplified repayment list, every person's net balance, and recorded settlements.
Trip chat basics
Message your crew, react, run polls, turn chat ideas into plans, share photos, and vote on ballots without leaving the conversation.
AI trip tools
Build a tailored inspiration list with the six-step wizard, choose only the ideas you want, and add them directly or propose them to the crew.