October 2026 Opal Release Notes: Shared Fences and Ownership Handoff

Shared Fences and Ownership Handoff

This release finishes something a lot of you have asked about: you can now share a whole fence, not just items and binders. It also adds a way to hand something you shared to someone else when the work changes hands. It includes:

• shared fences
• handing off a shared item, binder, or fence to a member
• new REST API routes for both
• your own colors and icons on shared items, plus new permissions for titles, subtitles, colors, and icons
• reordering saved views
• search results that stick, shift-select for fences, and faster Search/Find and real-time updates

Shared Fences

Sharing a fence shares everything inside it: items, nested fences, and binders. Each person places their own copy of the fence on their own desk, but the layout inside is the same for everyone, and changes show up live. See Sharing a Fence: Give Others a Whole Zone of Your Desk.

• How to share: click the fence’s title tab, click …, then Share. Pick a role or Custom permissions, add email addresses, and send the invite.
• Size: a shared fence holds up to 500 items, nested up to 10 levels deep.
• What’s shared: only the owner’s own items. An item someone else shared with you leaves the fence when you share it.
• Permissions:
  • Edit moves items inside the fence.
  • Add lets people put their own items in.
  • Remove takes other people’s items out, back to their owner.
  • Resize changes the fence’s size for everyone.
  • New Edit Titles, Edit Colors, and Edit Icon permissions cover titles, colors, and icons.
• Leaving or removing someone: their items leave the fence and land just outside where their copy was, or in their Inbox. With Assume delete capabilities and ownership of items of removed participants checked, those items become the owner’s and stay put.
• Deleting a fence leaves its items where they are, unless you choose to delete your items with it.
• Delete key: when you use the delete key on a binder or fence, Opal asks how you want to handle what’s inside. You can change what happens by default in Account & Profile.
• Dragging in and out: simply dragging items in and out of a shared fence will share them or remove the share.
• Be careful: if you drag something of yours into a fence that belongs to someone else, and they have Assume delete capabilities and ownership of items of removed participants checked, they can basically take it over.

Hand Off Ownership

The owner of a shared item, binder, or fence can now make one of its members the new owner. In the Share panel, click Reassign on your owner entry, choose a member, and decide whether to keep a share (Reassign Owner and Retain Share) or leave (Reassign Owner and Leave Share). For a binder or fence, your items inside go along by default. See Reassigning Ownership of Shared Items and Containers.

The Reassign button appears only on an item that is actively shared itself. It does not appear on an item that is shared only because it sits inside a shared fence or binder: hand off the fence or binder itself instead.

• Only people who have accepted the share can become the owner.
• The item’s files move into the new owner’s storage, so they need room for them.
• Other people’s shares stay, now from the new owner.

Your Own Colors & Icons on Shared Items

There are new permissions so you can let people change the title, subtitle, background color, text color, icon, and icon color of items you share with them.

And if you’re on the receiving end and don’t have permission to change an item’s color or icon, you can change them anyway, just for yourself. Only you will see it. Turn it on in Account & Profile under Content: Personal Shared Looks (Colors & Icons).

Smaller Updates

• Saved views: reorder your saved views in the View menu, so the ones you jump to most are right at the top.
• Search: search/filter results now stick around after you close the Find menu, until you clear the term or refresh the app.
• Multi-select: holding shift while clicking items or drawing a box now selects fences too. Drawing a box without shift won’t select fences.
• Faster: Search/Find no longer gets bogged down, especially on mobile, and real-time updates happen faster.

REST API and Agent Skill

New

• POST /items/:id/reassign: hand a shared item, binder, or fence to a member, with includeContents, retainShare and permissions. See Reassign Owner API: Hand a Shared Item, Binder, or Fence to a Member.
• Fence moves: PATCH /items/:id/fence/items/:itemId moves one item inside a fence, and POST /items/:id/fence/items/batch-move moves up to 500. See Fences API: Add Items, Read Children, and Move a Fence.

Changed

• POST /shares accepts fences (400 FENCE_TOO_LARGE or FENCE_TOO_DEEP past 500 items or 10 levels).
• Fence routes are no longer owner-only: people a fence is shared with can add, move, and remove with the matching toggles. Moving a fence with its children stays owner-only.
• GET /shares/outgoing returns recipient.userId, and both share lists take ?containerType=binder|fence.
• ownerControlsItems now works on fences as well as binders.
• Deleting a fence leaves its items in place; ?deleteContents=true deletes your items in it too.
• DELETE /shares/:id on a fence share moves the participant’s items out of the fence, or to the owner with ownerControlsItems on.
• DELETE /workspaces/:id deletes fences on it as with deleteContents=true.
• New toggles canEditTitles, canEditColors and canEditIcon. canEdit alone no longer covers titles, colors or icons.

Documentation

The REST API help docs have been updated for shared fences and reassignment, including a rewritten Fences API: Add Items, Read Children, and Move a Fence, an updated Sharing API: Shares, Permissions, and Recipient Placement, and new recipes. The Opal Recall Agent skill has been updated to match.

Chevas A. F. Balloun

Opal Operator

@chevas