A Flash Bridge is a short-lived link to one person's details — only the ones you pick — for someone who does not use Longtime. It disappears on its own.

Someone asks for a friend's address, and you would rather not paste four fields into a message. A Flash Bridge is a link to just that: one person's details, only the ones you choose, for a limited time. The person who opens it does not need a Longtime account.

Someone sent you a link?

It is a private, temporary page showing details one person chose to share with you — an address, a phone number. You do not need an account to open it. Download the vCard to save the contact to your phone or computer. The link stops working on its own after a while, and may need a password the sender gives you.

Making one

Open the person's page and create a Flash Bridge from it. Longtime may ask you to re-enter your own sign-in password first, to confirm it is you.
Set how long it lasts — a number of hours, days or weeks, up to two weeks. It starts at three hours.
Optionally set a separate password for the recipient — tell it to them yourself — and a view limit: how many times the page can be opened. Each opening counts, refreshes included.
Tick what to share:
- their photo — their picture, when Gravatar has one for their email address (ticked to start with);
- their name — any of first, preferred (such as a nickname), middle, last and previous last name (such as a maiden name);
- their age and birthday;
- their email, phone and address.
Create it, then copy the link and send it however you like.

What the recipient sees

The link opens a simple page with the details you chose and a button to download it as a vCard (a contact card their phone or contacts app can open), so they can save the contact in one tap. If you set a password, they enter it first. The page shows how many times it has been viewed and when it expires.

The download works from the page, in the browser that opened it. If you set a view limit, the person who opens the page for the last allowed time can still download the vCard for half an hour afterward, unless the link expires first.

Once it expires, or reaches its view limit, the link says "This shared link is no longer available."

Keeping track of links

Live links show on the person's page and on the Flash Bridges page in Bridges, with when each was made, when it expires, how often it has been viewed, and what it shares. A link is removed from both lists within the hour after it expires or reaches its view limit. The Bridges hub shows live ones under Out in the world, and warns you when one is about to expire.

Deleting a link revokes it immediately.

One person, briefly

A Flash Bridge shares exactly one person: the details you ticked, plus their timezone and a hidden ID in the downloadable vCard. It never reaches anything else in your Space, and it stops working on its own.

Details

The photo alone is not enough: choose at least one detail besides it.

Age and birthday are two boxes. Ticked alone, the birthday shows on the page as month and day and is left out of the vCard. With age ticked too, the vCard carries the full date, with the year.

The hidden ID in the vCard is the identity Longtime uses for the person, so a contact saved from it can be recognized if it ever comes back.