Working offline
What you can do in airplane mode (almost everything), how the sync banner and review panel keep you posted, and the few things that need a connection.
Limbo works in airplane mode. Trips, plans, checklists, and votes are all stored on your phone, so mid-flight, on a ferry, or deep in a national park, you keep planning as if nothing happened — and everything syncs the moment you're back online.
This works the same for every crew member; nothing about offline mode is organizer-gated.
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 and edit trips |
| Plans | Add, edit, and delete plans of every type |
| Checklists | Create checklists, add items, tick items off, delete |
| Voting | Cast, change, or withdraw your vote on any open ballot |
| Crew | Add and edit companions |
| Voting settings | Owners can change the trip's voting rules — saved locally, synced later |
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 pill near the bottom of the screen tells you where things stand. It appears on every screen and cycles through these states:
- ✈️ Airplane mode — all yours. You're offline. Below it: "Everything you do is saved on this device", or a count like "3 changes saved, they'll sync when you land."
- Syncing 3 changes… You're back online and Limbo is sending your queued changes.
- 3 changes ready to sync — Tap to sync now. You're online with changes still queued. Limbo will sync them on its own, but a tap pushes them through immediately.
- ✓ All synced. Everything went through. This flashes briefly, then slides away.
When there's nothing to report, there's no banner.
Tap the banner 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 resolves it automatically when the changes sync: the most recent edit wins, and the app refreshes the affected trip or plan so everyone ends up seeing the same thing. If a conflict needs attention, it appears in the Offline sync panel as Review item conflict or Review plan conflict.
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, Health Kit generation, and plans parsed from forwarded emails are all generated on Limbo's servers.
Note
Related articles
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Trip chat basics
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