How to share code so people can read it but not edit it

Live editing is great until it is not. Sometimes you want to show code to a room of people and you do not want any of them touching it. A demo, a lecture, a snippet you are walking a client through. In those moments a fully editable shared link is the wrong tool, because all it takes is one person clicking into the file and your example is now broken in front of everyone.

So SyncodeLive has read-only mode. The session owner flips one switch and everyone else on the link can see the code, watch it run, follow your cursor, but cannot change a character.

How to turn it on

1. Open a session. You are the owner of the sessions you create.
2. Find the read-only toggle in the session controls.
3. Flip it on. From that moment, everyone else on the link is in view mode.

Only the owner can change this setting. If someone else on the link tries to toggle it, the session tells them no. So you do not have to worry about a viewer quietly switching editing back on.

You can flip it off again any time. A common pattern is to keep it read-only during the explanation, then open editing when you want people to try something themselves.

When read-only is the right call

• Teaching or a workshop. You want thirty people watching the same code without thirty cursors fighting over it.
• A demo for a client. You are walking through how something works and the code needs to stay exactly as prepared.
• Sharing a reference snippet. You want people to read and copy it, not accidentally edit the canonical version.
• A code review you are presenting. You drive, they watch, and nobody bumps a line while you are mid-sentence.

Everyone still sees everything live

Read-only does not mean static. Viewers still get the live session. When you type, they see it appear. When you run the code, they see the output. Your cursor still moves on their screen. The only thing they cannot do is edit.

This matters because it keeps the good part of a live link. You are not sending a screenshot or a frozen paste. You are sending the real session, still updating in real time, just locked against changes from the audience.

How it is different from a plain paste

A paste in a chat is read-only by accident. Nobody can edit it, but nobody can run it either, and it stops being live the moment you send it. A SyncodeLive read-only link is read-only on purpose: the viewers cannot edit, but the code still runs, still updates as you work, and can be unlocked in one click when you are ready to collaborate.

If you have ever shared an editable link and watched someone fat-finger your demo thirty seconds before it mattered, this is the fix. Share the link, keep control, open it up when you want to.

It is free, not a paid upgrade

Worth saying plainly. Read-only sharing on SyncodeLive is not behind a Pro tier or a paid upgrade. The toggle is there for everyone, on every session, at no cost. There is no plan to buy and no per-seat charge to gate your audience out of edit mode. If you were comparing tools and the read-only link was the feature you needed, you have it here without paying.