asciiflow

A free, browser-based ASCII diagram editor

What asciiflow is

asciiflow is a browser-based editor for drawing, editing, and exporting ASCII-art diagrams. There is nothing to install — the editor loads entirely in your web browser. Diagrams are stored as plain ASCII characters, so they can be embedded directly in source code, README files, terminal output, documentation, and any other text-based medium.

What asciiflow does

• Infinite canvas — pan and zoom across an unbounded grid. Diagrams can be as small as a single box or as large as a system architecture overview.
• Freeform draw — draw boxes, lines, arrows, and freehand ASCII characters. Smart connectors re-route automatically when you move a box.
• Resize & move — drag box edges to resize, drag the body to move. Connected lines stay attached and reflow.
• Undo & redo — every action is reversible, with a full edit history.
• Export — copy your diagram as plain ASCII text for code comments, READMEs, or chat, or export as HTML.
• Google Drive integration — sign in with Google to optionally save diagrams to your own Drive and reopen them from any device.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  asciiflow — ASCII diagram editor                         │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

        ┌──────────┐        ┌──────────┐
        │  client  │───────▶│  server  │
        └──────────┘        └──────────┘
              │                   │
              │  https           │  drive
              ▼                   ▼
        ┌──────────┐        ┌──────────┐
        │  Google  │        │  Drive   │
        └──────────┘        └──────────┘

Who asciiflow is for

asciiflow is for developers, technical writers, sysadmins, and anyone who needs text-based diagrams that render identically in any text editor, terminal, or browser. Because the output is plain text, asciiflow diagrams survive in version control diffs, code comments, man pages, and chat messages where an image would not.

How it works

• Open the editor at the home page — the canvas loads in your browser, no install or sign-up required.
• Draw using the box, line, arrow, and freeform tools on the toolbar.
• Export your diagram as plain text or HTML whenever you like.
• To save diagrams to Google Drive, sign in with Google. Sign-in and Drive access are optional — the editor works fully without an account.

Google account & Drive access

asciiflow uses incremental authorization. When you first sign in with Google, asciiflow requests only the basic scopes needed to identify you (openid, email, profile) — no Drive access is requested at this stage. If you later choose to enable the Drive integration, asciiflow requests the Drive scopes (drive.metadata.readonly and drive.file) separately, using include_granted_scopes=true so your existing grants are preserved. This means you stay in control of exactly which permissions asciiflow has at every step.

See the requested scopes page for the full per-scope breakdown, and the privacy policy for how your data is handled.

Privacy & data

asciiflow contains no analytics, no advertising, and no third-party tracking. Diagrams you save are stored in your own Google Drive account under your control, not on this server. The OAuth token returned by Google is encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM). Full details are in the privacy policy.

Getting started

No install No sign-up to draw Free Single-user No tracking

Ready to draw? Head to the home page to open the editor, or sign in with Google to enable saving to your Drive.