In plain English
How Mind works
No jargon required. Here's the whole idea: your data lives in one private space you own, and apps gather around it.
Your pod
A pod is a personal data store on the web — “your own private cloud, but tiny and yours.” It looks like a folder: shared spaces for your calendar, contacts and photos, plus a private sandbox for each app you use. Each item has its own access rules, so you decide who sees what.
Apps can read your shared data (so a date you wrote in one app shows up in another) but can't peek into another app's private folder without your grant.
- ├─ profile/card # who you are
- ├─ calendar/ # your events
- ├─ contacts/ # your address book
- ├─ photos/ # your images
- ├─ inbox/ # messages from other pods
- ├─ agents/ # your AI agents
- └─ apps/ # a sandbox per app
One sign-in, every app
You sign in to your pod — not to the app
This is the magic that makes one identity work everywhere. Your password only ever touches your own pod.
- 01
You click “Sign in” on an app.
Say, the Marketplace.
- 02
The app asks: what's your pod?
You point it at your pod — the same one, every time.
- 03
The app sends you to your pod's login page.
Same shape as “Sign in with Google,” except the identity is yours, not a platform's.
- 04
You log in at your pod.
Password, passkey, or hardware key. Your pod host handles it — the app never sees your credentials.
- 05
You're back in the app, signed in.
It can now read and write only the folders you granted — typically its own.
Sign in to two apps and they read different folders in the same pod — but it's still one you. That's standard Solid identity (a WebID): a web address that points to a document describing you.
Your choice, always
Where your pod lives is up to you
Pods aren't owned by any company. Pick where yours runs — and move it later without losing your identity or breaking your apps. Whoever hosts it just runs the server; they don't own your data.
A home box
A Raspberry Pi, NAS, or mini-PC in your house.
Your VPS
A cheap virtual server you rent.
A commercial host
Pod-as-a-service like mindpods.org — pay monthly, leave anytime.
A community server
A local non-profit running shared pod infrastructure.
A friend's box
Someone you trust with spare server capacity.
Your laptop
Local-first, sync up when you're online.
Ready? Get a pod on mindpods.org.
We'll host it for you in seconds — and you can take it elsewhere whenever you like.