How to sign up and sign in to Sandtime.io
Sandtime.io has no passwords. You sign in either with your email address, which sends you one message containing a sign-in link and a code, or with Continue with Google, Continue with Microsoft, Continue with Apple, or Continue with Yahoo. All five reach the same account, because the account is the email address behind them rather than the button you pressed.
How do I create an account?
There is no separate sign-up step to complete. The first time you sign in with an address that is not already in an organization, Sandtime.io creates a free workspace and makes you its Administrator.
If a colleague invited you, use the link in their invitation instead. That link puts you in their organization. Signing in from the home page with the same address works too, but only after the invitation exists - see Invite team members.
What is the difference between the sign-in link and the code?
They are the same thing. The code is the tail end of the link, printed underneath it so you do not have to click.
Click the link when you are reading the email on the device you want to sign in on. Type the code when you are not: open the email on your phone, read the 16 characters, and enter them on the computer. The code is uppercase and deliberately avoids characters that look alike, so there is no 0 or O and no 1 or l to misread.
Both stop working ten minutes after the email is sent. If yours has expired, ask for a new one rather than trying to repair it.
Do the different sign-in methods create separate accounts?
No. Your account is your email address.
If you signed up with Continue with email and later press Continue with Google on the same address, you land in the same account with the same organizations, projects, and history. Nothing is duplicated and nothing about the account changes. The providers have to tell Sandtime.io that the address is verified before it is accepted, which is why this is safe.
This also makes the provider buttons a useful fallback: when an emailed code will not arrive, a provider sign-in on the same address is usually the quickest way in.
Do I have to enter a code every time I sign in?
No. You stay signed in on that browser or device until you sign out, for up to a year.
The code is for getting in the first time on a new device, not for every visit. If you would rather not type one at all, use a provider button, which signs you in with a click once your browser already has that account open.
Signing out is more thorough than it looks: it ends the session on every device for that address, in every organization, and it revokes your API keys and MCP tokens as well.
Should I use Apple's Hide My Email?
Not when you are joining somebody else's organization. Choose Share My Email.
When you use Continue with Apple, Apple offers to hide your address and pass on a relay address ending in @privaterelay.appleid.com instead. Sandtime.io identifies accounts by address, so that relay address is a different account from the one your colleague invited.
What makes this worth a warning is that nothing reports an error. You sign in successfully and land in a new, empty workspace of your own, so it looks as though your team's data is missing. On the other side, the administrator still sees you listed at your work address, waiting. Neither of you is told that the two are not the same person.
Using your own address is fine when you are setting up an organization for yourself, but the relay address still has to keep forwarding, because every sign-in link, invitation, reminder, and approval email goes to it.
I already signed in with Hide My Email. How do I fix it?
Open your Apple ID settings, find Sandtime.io under the apps using Sign in with Apple, and revoke its access. The next time you press Continue with Apple, Apple treats it as a first sign-in and asks again - choose Share My Email this time. You then arrive on your real address, and your organizations are there.
Two things that do not fix themselves:
- Anything you tracked in the workspace created under the relay address stays in that workspace. It does not move across.
- The address on an account cannot be changed from settings. If you need the relay workspace itself renamed to your real address, see How to change your email address.
Why am I asked to complete a security check?
Signing in by email sometimes shows a short automated check before the message is sent, and the page says Complete the security check to continue. It protects the sign-in form from automated abuse and usually passes without any interaction. The provider buttons do not use it.
Related
- Troubleshoot sign-in links and verification codes - expired codes, damaged links, and messages that never arrive
- Find data that appears missing after sign-in - when you are in the wrong organization
- How to change your email address
- Subprocessors - what each sign-in provider sends to Sandtime.io