How sign-in works
How SolarLayout knows who you are — your account, your sign-in, and how the same account works across devices.
Updated for v0.3.0. SolarLayout switched from pasting a license key to signing in through your browser. If you're on v0.2.x, update from the download page — your projects, history, and remaining calcs are untouched. See the Migration Guide for what to expect on first launch.
SolarLayout uses one account to know who you are. The same account holds your sign-in, your purchases, your remaining calcs, and your projects. You sign in once on each machine and the app remembers you from then on.
The sign-in flow, in one paragraph
When you open the desktop app for the first time on a new machine, you
click Sign in (or Create account). Your default browser opens
to solarlayout.app. You sign in there — email and password, or
Google sign-in if you used that to sign up. When you finish, the
browser hands you back to the app automatically. There are no codes
to copy or paste.
After that first sign-in, the app remembers you. Closing and reopening the app does not ask you to sign in again.
Why through the browser
The browser is where the account lives. Signing in through
solarlayout.app means:
- Your password never enters the desktop app. It only ever goes to the SolarLayout website, like any other web sign-in.
- Google sign-in works the same as it does on the website. You don't need a separate desktop integration.
- Account recovery, password reset, and any future identity changes happen in one place — the website — and the desktop app simply uses whatever your current sign-in is.
One account, many devices
You can install SolarLayout on as many devices as you need to and sign in on each. Your remaining-calc count is a single number on your account; using a calc on your work laptop reduces the count your home laptop sees the next time it refreshes.
There is no "device limit" on the account — work laptop, home laptop, desktop machine, all fine.
Switching accounts
To switch the desktop app to a different account:
- Open the user menu in the top-right of the app.
- Click Sign out.
- The welcome screen reappears. Sign in with the other account.
Signing out does not remove your projects from that account on the cloud — it just disconnects this machine from the account. Sign back in with the same account and your projects are right where you left them.
Where to manage the account itself
For account details — email, password, plan, billing — head to the
dashboard at solarlayout.app. The desktop
app uses whatever the website says is current.
See also: Signing in for the step-by-step sign-in walkthrough and troubleshooting, and Where credentials live for what SolarLayout stores on your computer between sign-ins.