Public Access

How to let guests, signed-out visitors and new users access your Overleaf instance?

You can open your Overleaf instance to people without an account in three ways:

• Project Access: let guests open a shared project link without logging in
• Page Access: let signed-out visitors browse pages such as /learn, /templates and /devs
• Public Registration: let users sign up themselves, optionally limited to an email domain

Project Access

By default, even if a user obtains a project sharing link, they must log in before they can join a collaborative project editing session.

To allow anonymous access for link-shared projects, set both variables below:

config/variables.env

OVERLEAF_ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_READ_AND_WRITE_SHARING=true
OVERLEAF_ALLOW_PUBLIC_ACCESS=true

OVERLEAF_ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_READ_AND_WRITE_SHARING enables anonymous read/write on link-shared projects.

OVERLEAF_ALLOW_PUBLIC_ACCESS prevents non-authenticated users being redirected to the login page.

Recreate containers with bin/up. Then open a link-sharing URL in a private window.

Page Access

By default (OVERLEAF_ALLOW_PUBLIC_ACCESS not set), every page except the login and registration pages redirects signed-out visitors to the login page. This includes pages that are meant to be public, so links to them only work for users who are already logged in.

With OVERLEAF_ALLOW_PUBLIC_ACCESS=true, signed-out visitors can open:

Page	Requires
LaTeX help at /learn (see adding-latex-user-help.md)	OVERLEAF_PROXY_LEARN=true
The template gallery at /templates, template pages, previews and ZIP downloads (see templates.md)	OVERLEAF_TEMPLATE_GALLERY=true
The Overleaf Import API page at /devs (see overleaf-import-api.md)	—

It also lets the Overleaf Import API keep a form submission from a signed-out visitor until they have logged in.

The project list, the editor and creating projects (also from a template or through the Import API) still require a login.

Public Registration

Public registration is only available in ayaka-notes/ayakaleaf-pro.

Please note that once you enable public registration, anyone with access to your Overleaf instance can register as a user.

The registration process does not verify email addresses, so please only use it on an intranet or in a trusted environment, or disable it when you no longer need registration.

By default, neither the Community Edition nor Overleaf Pro allows public registration.

To enable it, add this to config/variables.env:

config/variables.env

OVERLEAF_ALLOW_PUBLIC_REGISTRATION=true

Recreate containers with bin/up.

Then click Sign up or visit /register.

Registration With Limited Domain

Limited-domain public registration is only available in ayaka-notes/ayakaleaf-pro.

Before enabling this, configure email delivery so users can receive invites and notifications. See Email delivery.

Then add the following line to config/variables.env:

config/variables.env

OVERLEAF_ALLOW_PUBLIC_REGISTRATION=@example.domain

OVERLEAF_ALLOW_PUBLIC_REGISTRATION can be set to:

• true to allow anyone who can reach the site to register
• @example.domain to restrict registration to emails in that domain