MarkLayer has no sign-up, which is the whole point, but it also means there is no inbox of past work to fall back on. This guide answers the questions that come up in the first five minutes: where your marks are stored, what survives closing the tab, and how to find the link again.
Bottom line
On marklayer.app the link exists before you draw anything: it is in the address bar the moment the page loads, and every mark saves to it as you work, so copying that URL is the only step you must not skip. In the Chrome extension your marks stay on your own computer until you press Share, which is what creates the link. Either way there are no accounts, so the link is the only handle on your work: paste it somewhere you will look again.
Two ways to use it, and the difference that matters
The website. Go to marklayer.app, paste the address of the page you want to mark up, and press the arrow. MarkLayer loads that page inside itself and hands you the drawing tools. Nothing to install.
The Chrome extension.Install it once, then click the MarkLayer icon on any page you are already looking at. This is the one to use for pages that need you to be logged in, like an admin panel or a client's dashboard, because you are annotating the real page in your own browser.
The difference that trips people up is when the link gets created.
On the website, the link exists first. The moment the page loads you are already at an address like marklayer.app/s/V1StGXR8, and every mark you make is saved to it as you go.
In the extension, your marks start out on your own computer only. They become a link when you press Share, and not before.
What happens when you close the page
On the website: nothing is lost. Reopen the link and your marks are there, along with any comments other people left in the meantime.
In the extension: your unshared marks are saved on your own computer, tied to that exact page address. Open the same page again in the same browser and they come back with a small "Draft restored" note. That draft lives in this browser on this computer, so it will not survive clearing your browsing data, and it will not appear on your laptop if you drew on your desktop. Press Share to turn it into something that outlives the machine.
How to get your link back
Every link looks like marklayer.app/s/ plus a short random code.
Open your browser history and search for marklayer.app/s. Every page you shared will be in there.
Check where you sent it: the chat message, the email, the ticket.
If it is in neither place, it is gone. There is no account, so there is no list of your past links for us to look up, and support cannot recover one. The habit worth building: as soon as you create a link, paste it into wherever the work actually lives.
Getting the feedback out
Comments do not have to stay in MarkLayer. In the panel on the right of any share link you can copy every comment and highlight as Markdown, or download it as a .md file, which paste cleanly into a ticket, a doc, or an AI coding assistant. You can also export the annotated page as a PNG image.
Do this before a review goes quiet if you need a permanent record, because the link itself is cleaned up 90 days after the last time anyone opened it.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I close the page while I am annotating?
On marklayer.app nothing is lost. Your marks save to the share link as you make them, so reopening that link brings everything back, including anyone else's comments. In the Chrome extension, marks you have not shared yet are saved on your own computer for that exact page address, and they reappear with a 'Draft restored' message the next time you open the same page in the same browser. That draft is local: it does not survive clearing browser data, and it does not follow you to another computer.
How do I find the link to a page I already annotated?
Every share link looks like marklayer.app/s/ followed by a short code. If you have lost it, open your browser history and search for 'marklayer.app/s'. Check anywhere you pasted it too, such as a chat message or an email. There is no account and no list of past links inside MarkLayer, so if the link is nowhere in your history and nowhere you sent it, it cannot be recovered. Paste it somewhere durable as soon as you create it.
Do I need to press Save?
No. There is no Save button because there is nothing to save manually. On marklayer.app every mark and comment is written to the share link as you make it. In the extension, pressing Share is what publishes your marks to a link; before that they are only on your computer.
Do the people I send the link to need an account?
No. They open the link and can draw, comment and reply immediately, with no sign-up and no install. If you are both on the link at the same time you will see each other's cursors and changes live.
Who can see my annotations?
Anyone who has the link. The link is the access control, the same way an unlisted document link works: the code in it is random and unguessable, but it is not password protected. Keep links to sensitive work in private channels.
How long do my annotations stay online?
90 days from the last time anyone opened the link. Any view or comment resets that clock, so an active review round stays available for as long as it is active. After 90 days of silence the annotations are deleted for good. If you need a permanent record, download the comments as a Markdown file or export the page as a PNG from the viewer before the round goes quiet.
Why does my share link show a blank or broken page?
The share link reloads the original page inside MarkLayer, so it only works for pages that are publicly reachable on the internet. Pages behind a login, on localhost, or on an internal company network cannot be loaded that way. A handful of sites also refuse to load inside another page at all, including YouTube, Instagram, X, Facebook and TikTok. Your marks are still there in these cases, but the page underneath them may not render.
Can I use MarkLayer on my phone?
Not yet. Both the web app and the extension are desktop only, and marklayer.app will tell you so if you open it on a phone. Share links can be opened on a phone but are not designed for annotating there.
Paste any URL at marklayer.app and annotate the live page in your browser. No install, no account, no sign-up. Recipients of your share links don't need to install anything either.