licensing

Home > Licensing & activation

< Previous: Installing & launching | Next: Beta License Agreement >

Getting Started

Important

The public beta is live. See Installing & launching to download the current build for macOS or Windows. A beta license is free, and beta testers get a free one-year license when Locus ships.

Licensing & activation

Drawing and building are always unlocked; saving and exporting need a license. Here's how activation works.

Locus Studio is licensed per machine. Drawing, constructing, wiring the node graph, and importing artwork are always available - open the app and build freely. What needs a valid license is keeping your work: three actions are gated.

• Save a .locus file
• Export SVG
• Export DXF

Try one of these without a license and Locus opens the Activate dialog instead of writing the file.

The Activate dialog

Open it any time from the App menu > License... (the "Locus Studio" menu), or let it appear on its own the first time you Save or Export. It shows:

• Your machine ID: a fingerprint of this computer - with a Copy button.
• A box to paste a license, and an Activate button.

A license is tied to the machine ID it was issued for, so that ID is what you send to get one.

Getting a license

Locus Studio is in public beta, and a beta license is free. Copy your machine ID from the Activate dialog and email it to algoristanm@gmail.com, the address the dialog itself shows. A license comes back, you paste it in, and you Activate.

On release day, two things happen. Everyone who tested the beta is issued a free one-year license, automatically: you won't have to ask, and you won't have to send anything, because the machine ID you already gave us is enough. And anyone else can get a free 90-day license by sending their machine ID the same way, so they can try the app properly before paying for it.

Note

Activation is fully offline. There's no account to create and nothing phones home - the license is a signed token verified on your own machine. A self-serve purchase page is planned; until it lands, licenses are issued by email.

Moving to a new computer

Because a license is bound to one machine, a license from your old computer won't activate a new one - the dialog will say it's for a different machine. Copy the new machine's ID from its Activate dialog and email it for a transfer.

Renewing

When a license reaches its expiry date, Save and Export lock again and the dialog reports that the license has expired. Email to renew, then paste the new license.

Caution

Confirm against the build Licensing is actively evolving - trial length, the purchase flow, and the exact dialog wording may change between versions. The stable parts are the three gated actions (Save, Export SVG, Export DXF) and the machine-ID-by-email flow.

< Previous: Installing & launching | Next: Beta License Agreement >

Related

• Community & support: ask questions, share your work, and get a license.
• Saving & opening
• Exporting SVG | Exporting DXF