Thortspace: 3D Mind Mapping1.6.943 - App Store

Thortspace turns tangled thinking into clarity.

Lay out everything you know about a difficult problem - every idea, every conflict, every loose end - then move it, group it and connect it until the shape of the answer appears. On your own, or with your team in real time.

This is 3D mind mapping built around the way thinking actually works. Instead of a flat tree on a page, your ideas live on the surfaces of spheres you can turn, dive into and rearrange - so you are never forced to commit to a hierarchy before you understand the problem.

WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT
* Ideas (called "thorts") sit on the surfaces of one or more spheres, presented in 3D
* Group by proximity as well as by explicit connection - position carries meaning
* Paths connect anything to anything: thort to thort, thort to group, group to group, sphere to sphere
* Store several alternative arrangements of the same ideas and move between them
* "Journeys" record a sequence of viewpoints, turning a finished map into a presentation
* Real-time collaboration - think together, from anywhere, on the same sphere

FEATURES
* Works online and offline
* Real-time collaborative editing
* The same interface and the same data across every major platform and device
* Thorts can hold images and links, and be colour-coded across several categorisations at once
* Share by email, by private link, or publish to the web in one click
* A newsfeed tracking your own and other people's contributions across shared spheres

WHAT PEOPLE USE IT FOR
Brainstorming, problem solving, concept mapping, research, study and revision, writing and outlining, strategy and planning, team sense-making, retrospectives - and thinking any difficult thing through to the end.

Thortspace is built for experimental, multi-perspective reflection; for making chunks of thinking you can reuse as building blocks; for synthesis as much as analysis; and for the journey, not only the destination.

Thortspace is protected by copyright (c) Gooisoft Ltd 2008-2026 and by patents granted in the UK, USA, Canada and Hong Kong: GB2494520, US9684426, CA2847602 and HK1183135.

All thinks are possible. #Real_Intelligence

Version History • Editing a thort: it now rises smoothly into place, with no jump at the end.

• Do mode: the card you are editing stays above the keyboard, its text shows in full afterwards, and the columns reach the dots below.

• Present mode: tapping a thort's text reminds you that thorts can't be edited there, and points to Think mode. 1.6.943 2d ago Ask the AI how to use anything

Ask the AI how to do something, or where something is, and it answers in a line and points an arrow at the right tab or button. If there is a lesson for it, it can walk you through it. If a panel is switched off in your settings, it tells you where to switch it back on. Teach on its own is enough to ask; Assist is only needed when you want the AI to work on your sphere.

A tip when it would help

Thortspace now suggests a feature when something on your sphere shows you could use it: Do mode when your Thorts read like a to-do list, the link field when you have typed a web address into a Thort, arrangements when you keep reworking one layout. There is never more than one tip a day, and never for something you already use. "Not now" holds a tip back for a month, and "Don't suggest this" means never. Teach is now on for everyone; switch it off in the AI tab if you would rather not have tips.

What's new

The first time you open a new version, a short note says what has changed, with a link to read more.

Do mode on iPhone and iPad

Cards drag cleanly between columns, the card you are editing lifts above the board, and the board keeps clear of the on-screen keyboard. Tapping away saves your edit. Scrolling a column no longer opens the card you start on.

Journeys

When a journey step frames a group, that group lights up. Journeys the AI builds frame each group to its size.

Moving around

A sphere you have not visited opens on the same view as its picture. Linked spheres stay under your pointer while you drag them.

The Thorts list

The row you are editing lifts like a card, rows show their category colours, and selecting a Thort on the sphere scrolls the list to it.

Fixes

Do mode no longer shows a drawing error when someone you are working with adds a group. The old tutorial videos and the Tutorials page are gone: the lessons, the help button and the AI do that job now. 1.6.936 3d ago Dragging paths

Press on a path and drag: the whole path, every thort and group along it, moves round the sphere together and keeps its shape. Drop it against another group and the thorts it carried join that group; press Undo to put everything back where it was.

Momentum

Flick the sphere and it keeps turning after you let go, slowing gently to a stop. A drag that has stopped before you let go ends exactly where it did. The roll, a drag outside the sphere's edge, coasts the same way. If you prefer the sphere to stop dead, switch off Momentum in User Settings.

Dragging thorts

Letting go of a thort now turns the view only part of the way towards the group it joined, so you keep your place on the sphere.

Sharing and new spheres

The New Sphere dialog, Publish, Unpublish and the Sharing tab now tell you plainly whether a sphere will be saved to the cloud, and what to do if it will not.

AI assistant

The AI assistant comes up reliably when you start it. Its suggestions appear only once you have used the assistant. 1.6.928 Oct 4 Fixes

A sphere that can no longer be saved to the cloud now always keeps your changes on this device. In some cases the previous version stopped saving it until the app was restarted.

The AI assistant now works on larger spheres. When a sphere is too large for it to read in full, it says so once instead of failing every time you ask. 1.6.926 Oct 3 Copying and embedding

Copying someone else's sphere now needs the owner's permission, and it is a Premium feature. Making a sphere public lets other people view it and embed it in their own spheres, but no longer lets them copy it. To build on a public sphere, drag it from the spheres list onto a thort. You can always copy your own spheres, and on a free account a copy of your own public sphere stays public.

Sharing

Publishing a sphere now asks you to confirm first, because it makes the sphere visible to everyone. Unpublishing happens straight away.

Newsfeed

The Public and Private Shared feeds show how many entries are unread, on the tab and on the filter. A public sphere you are reading now picks up the author's changes while it is open, and an entry about a group takes you to that group. An entry about a link shows the link, with the same animation the lessons use.

Do mode

Pointing at a thort on the sphere behind the board now does what pointing at its group does: the column lights up and slides into view, and the thort's own card lights up too. Pointing at a card lights its thort on the sphere. A thort added with a column's Add Thort button settles into its group instead of sitting in the middle of it.

Help and editing

In help mode, every tab and every part of the Do mode board now explains itself. When you edit a group's name, the text cursor now shows on dark categories too. A sphere that can no longer be saved keeps your changes and tells you once, instead of trying again every minute. 1.6.924 Sep 28 Lists that move the way you expect

Every list in Thortspace can now be dragged directly — newsfeeds, search results, history, pictures, kanban columns and both journeys lists. Flick one and it keeps going, slowing gently to a stop rather than halting under your finger. The same feel applies everywhere, because it is the same mechanism everywhere.

In the spheres list, direction now decides: drag a sphere sideways to link it to the sphere you are in, or up and down to scroll the list. Touch has always worked this way; now the mouse does too.

A newsfeed worth reading

The feed opens on public activity and gives each sphere a single row, expanded to the changes inside it, with a preview image, the faces of the people involved and a tint taken from the sphere's own shade. Rows stay collapsed until you want them and no longer grow without limit.

Do mode

The board's dot ribbon follows your finger rather than working against it, and keeps its momentum when you let go. It steps aside when a dialog opens and returns with the rest of the screen. Column headers take their text shade from the category. Cards holding a link open it from the circle icon, which also means those cards can be edited again.

Text and editing

Tap in the middle of a line and the cursor lands where you tapped instead of at the end of it. A single very long word no longer hides the rest of a thort. A thort you have just created settles into place before it lifts for editing.

Fixes

Dragging a thort into a group now joins it where it touches the group, and it stays under the cursor while you drag.

On iPhone and iPad, Thortspace no longer closes when the system asks it to free memory. On a device with less memory to spare this could happen within seconds of opening the app.

Opening a panel over the Do mode board no longer makes the rest of the screen flicker. 1.6.922 Sep 24 Do mode
• The board now carries a ribbon of dots, one per group, each in its own shade — solid while its column is on screen and faint while it is off, so the ribbon is a map of the whole board and not just a scroll bar. Drag it to sweep from one end of the board to the other in a single movement, or tap a dot to bring that column into view. On iPhone and iPad it takes the place of the thin scroll bar, which was hard to catch with a finger.
• Pinch to zoom the sphere while the board is open. A touch screen has no scroll wheel and no keyboard, so this was the one way to zoom that was missing.
• Tapping a column header now also selects its group out on the sphere, and the board slides that column into view. Selection on the board and selection on the sphere are one thing seen twice.
• A column is now drawn the way the sphere draws its group, so the two read as the same object rather than two pictures of it.
• Status messages no longer cover the ribbon.

Linked spheres
• Turn a linked sphere where it hangs, with a right-drag on its surface. The turn is remembered with the sphere, so it is there again next time you open it.

Working together
• A shared session now survives the app going to the background. Putting the phone down used to strand you outside the session with no way back in; now you rejoin when you return, and while you are disconnected the sphere is read-only rather than quietly taking edits that would be lost.
• Joining a shared sphere now takes seconds rather than about a minute.
• A message about switching to the relay was being raised as an error, which started a second join on top of the first.

Fixes
• An update arriving while an earlier one was still being worked through could roll back recent edits. Fixed.
• AI assistants: a batch of thorts now arrives as one group and one undo step, deleting a thort while it is moving no longer fails, and deleting a sphere now works from the in-app bridge. 1.6.919 Sep 18 Getting started
• The guided start now works on iPhone, iPad and Mac. A new user is taken straight into a practice sphere with their first Thort ready to type, instead of being left at the menu — previously this only happened on Windows.
• The coach now speaks the language of the device it is on. On a touch screen it points at the Next button rather than telling you to press a key you do not have, and it mentions dictating a thought with the microphone on your keyboard, which is usually the quickest way to capture one on a phone.

People and sharing
• A new People list on the Sharing tab replaces the old Facebook friends list. It shows the people you share spheres with first, has a search box, and lets you hide anyone you don't need to see.
• Choose a profile picture from the Pictures tab. It appears next to your name in the sharing and People lists.
• Free accounts can now share public spheres.

Groups
• Group colours are now repaired automatically. A sphere whose group colours were stored in a form older versions could not read is mended the first time you open it, so they cannot be lost again — including on another device still running an older version.
• Categories applied to groups now save reliably. Before, they could be lost when a sphere was uploaded.
• Dragging thorts into a group one at a time no longer sends the group to the middle of the sphere or gives it another group's name.
• A group's name no longer ends up drawn over its thorts after they move.

AI assistants
• An AI assistant connected to Thortspace can now lay out a sphere so the paths between groups are as short as possible, fold it flat into a map, find and assign pictures, and change the theme and sphere size.

Other fixes
• A category swatch always drops into a slot when you let go of it.
• The Journeys panel no longer gets stuck on its wait wheel.
• Links between spheres: linked spheres no longer pile up in one spot, and going back along a link returns you the way you came.
• An updated copyright and patent notice in the About box. 1.6.913 Sep 14 Fixes bug in previous 2 versions 1.6.907 Sep 3 Improves AI integration including easier to turn AI off. Attempts to make AI less annoying. Kanban mode is better integrated with 3d UI. Fixes mouse-pointer I-bar on text editing. 1.6.906 Aug 31 Apply categories to groups including display in Do Mode. AI integration. Fixed virtual network behaviour. Sundry enhancements and bug fixes. 1.6.902 Aug 26 Bug fixes and usability improvements. Fixed virtual network behaviour. AI integration. 1.6.901 Aug 20 Bug fixes and usability improvements. Fixed virtual network behaviour. AI integration. 1.6.900 Aug 19 Bug fixes and usability improvements. Fixed virtual network behaviour. AI integration. 1.6.812 Aug 14 Fixed virtual network behaviour. AI integration. 1.6.811 Aug 11 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.6.700 08/25/2025 Bug fixes and useability enhancement. 1.6.6 07/10/2025 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.6.5 07/09/2025 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.5.39 06/01/2021 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.5.38 05/26/2021 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.5.36 05/14/2021 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.5.34 04/17/2021 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.5.33 04/13/2021 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.5.31 03/22/2021 Bug fixes and usability enhancements. 1.5.30 01/22/2021