Quick start

Pilot EFB Desk is the web edition of Pilot EFB, at app.pilotefb.com. It is the same product and the same local-first database as the iOS app, laid out for a desk: a sidebar instead of a tab bar, a command field instead of a thumb. It is a personal planning and briefing companion, not a certified Electronic Flight Bag, and every panel keeps saying so: "Reference only - verify officially." on weather, "May be incomplete - verify officially." on NOTAMs. This chapter takes you from the address bar to a working Overview.

Find your way around

Three gates, in this order, and nothing else loads until all three are passed:

Once through, the shell is the same on every page:

::guide-shot{src="/guide-images/desk/overview/home" alt="The Pilot EFB Desk Overview in a browser: the sidebar rests expanded with the Pilot EFB Desk mark, Overview highlighted, Duty & FTL, Logbook and Watch under OPERATIONS, Flight Brief, Weather, NOTAMs, Airports and Ops Map under PLANNING, Tools and Checklists under LIBRARY, then Community and Settings, an ONLINE line with the collapse chevron and Sofia Marlow, EGLL, EASA at the foot; the top bar holds the Overview title, the Search airports, pages and actions field with a Cmd+K keycap, the Guided tours key, a bell with a 6 badge, the theme key, the question-mark shortcuts key and a clock reading 17:55:23Z; and the content column shows the masthead reading WATCHING EGLL home + 3 chosen, SYNCED 2m ago 0 pending and 6 alerts unread, the duty ledger from FDP ELAPSED 4:25 to SECTORS 4, the Station board with EGLL open to its raw METAR and forecast outlook, footed Source: SADIS (UK Met Office) and Reference only - verify officially, and the NOTAM alerts wall with CRIT 17, HIGH 39, MED 72 and LOW 4, footed Source: NOTAM Management System and May be incomplete - verify officially" width="2880" height="1800" caption="The finished Overview: the sidebar expanded under its Operations, Planning and Library headings, the command field and clock in the top bar, and the desk underneath with its sources and framing on every panel." variant="web"} ::

How to sign in

1. Open app.pilotefb.com. The Welcome back screen is the first thing you see; there is no guest mode on the web, so nothing loads until you sign in.
2. Type your Email and Password and click Sign in. Tick Keep me signed in on this device on your own machine; leave it off on a shared crew-room browser.
3. Prefer Google? Click Continue with Google under "or continue with". If you have no account yet, this creates one, and the line under the button says you agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy by continuing.
4. No password to hand? Click Email me a sign-in link instead and open the link from your inbox. Forgotten it? Click Forgot? beside the password field, then Reset password.
5. New to Pilot EFB? Click Create account, fill in Email, Password and Confirm password, and click Create account. The Send me occasional tips and Pro offers by email box under the form starts unticked and is optional.

How to accept the disclaimer

1. After sign-in, the Terms of use panel appears if your account has never accepted the current disclaimer. Its rail reads Welcome, Disclaimer and Acknowledge; the disclaimer text is the same wording the iOS app shows.
2. Read it, then tick the box: "I accept these points and will check official sources before acting on anything." The line under it says that continuing also accepts the Terms of Service, and links the Privacy Policy; both open in a new tab.
3. Click Accept and continue. The button stays disabled until the box is ticked, and your acceptance is recorded with a timestamp.

The acceptance follows the account, so you see this panel once, and the phone and every other browser inherit it. If saving fails you get "Could not save your acceptance. Please try again." - reconnect and click again.

How to start the Desk plan

1. On the paywall, the ticket on the right is headed Choose your plan. Pick Yearly ($199.99 / year, with a "Save 17%" chip) or Monthly ($19.99 / month, "$239.88 over twelve months, billed monthly"). Both auto-renew until cancelled.
2. Read the trial line above the plans: "Free for 3 days, then $199.99/year or $19.99/month. A payment card is needed to start; cancel before the trial ends and nothing is charged. One free trial per person and per payment card."
3. Click Start 2-day free trial. The button reads Subscribe · $199.99 / year (or the monthly figure) instead when the account has already had a Desk free trial.
4. The button reads "Opening checkout" and the browser moves to Stripe's checkout page. Finish it there; Stripe brings you back, the button reads "Confirming your payment" while it waits, and the desk loads on its own once the subscription is confirmed. If the card has already started a Desk trial on another account, the trial is cancelled at once, nothing is charged, and the page says Free trial not available - you can still subscribe without one.

The left half of the paywall is the pitch: an Everything included tab and a Free iOS app vs Desk tab. The note under the comparison is worth a read: the Free column describes the free iOS app, and Desk has no free tier. The same page says the web subscription is separate from any App Store purchase - subscribing on iPhone or iPad does not unlock Desk. Not ready? Sign out is the only other way off the gate; Sign out and remove local data beside it also deletes everything Desk keeps in this browser, which is the one to use on a shared or borrowed computer.

How to run the first-run setup

The first time an unconfigured account reaches the desk, a First-run setup takeover opens over it, offered once per account. It asks what you came to the desk to do and sets up only what that job needs.

1. On Let's tailor this to you, pick your role: Airline, Commercial, GA / Private or Student. Click Continue.
2. On What brings you to the desk?, pick one job: Import my logbook, Import my roster, Prepare my next flight, Watch airports or Just let me look around. Role and job are the two answers the walk needs.
3. Set your home base (optional) - the same airport search as the phone, with Return taking the top suggestion. Its live METAR shows as soon as it is set.
4. If your role flies under duty rules (airline or commercial), Your operation asks you to confirm your duty and rest rules - opened pre-selected from your home base's country (FAA Part 117 for the US, EASA ORO.FTL for Europe and the UK; elsewhere the screen says EASA is only a default) - plus your operator and fleet. It is optional. Watching airports adds Set up your desk: add the Airports you watch (with Suggested near chips for airports close to your home base - one click adds one, nothing is added for you), set your Units (Metric or Imperial, hPa or inHg) and read the Keyboard shortcuts primer.
5. The summary step lists what was set up, and its button says where it goes: Open logbook import, Open roster import, Start a briefing, Open the Watch Desk or Open the Overview. Press the New here? Tour the desk card there instead and the desk tour starts as soon as setup closes.

Pick a job with a result - an import, a briefing, airports to watch - and a Your first job panel leads the Overview until it is done, with the one action that does it, Choose a different task and Not now.

How to learn the shell

1. Click any sidebar row to change page. The sidebar rests expanded, with the Operations, Planning and Library headings and every row's name in view. Click the chevron at the foot (Collapse sidebar / Expand sidebar) to fold it to a 64px icon strip with Ops, Pln and Lib band codes and names on hover; the choice is remembered, and the strip no longer folds itself after a page change.
2. After a jump from an Overview panel into another page, a back chevron at the left of the top bar ("Back to Overview" on hover) returns you to the panel you left; switching pages from the sidebar clears it.
3. Press Cmd+1 to Cmd+9 to jump to the first nine destinations in rail order - Overview, Duty & FTL, Logbook, Watch, Flight Brief, Weather, NOTAMs, Airports, Ops Map - and Cmd+, for Settings.
4. Press Cmd+K (or click the command field) and type an ICAO code, a page name, a logbook entry or an action. The deck searches airports, pages, your own records and actions, with a preview of the highlighted row.
5. Click the Notifications bell for alerts - a currency about to lapse, a rest period complete, a watched NOTAM - and Open notifications for the full queue.
6. Click the theme key to cycle System, Light, Dark and Red-light (night); it is the same setting as Settings > Appearance.
7. Press ? on any page, outside a text field, for the shortcuts sheet; Esc closes it or the palette. The clock at the far right is UTC, and every time on the desk reads in Zulu unless a screen says otherwise.

::guide-shot{src="/guide-images/desk/keyboard-and-command-deck/home-deck" alt="The command deck open over the Overview: a search field reading LEMD with an esc keycap, scope chips for All, Airports, Pages, Records, Actions and Watch, a left column listing Airports 1 with LEMD Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas Airport tagged MAD and FAV, NOTAMs 5 with LEMD notices such as A4728/26 Instrument approach 18R - not available, and Logbook 5 starting with LEMD - EGLL - G-PEFA on 24 Aug 2026, a right-hand Station preview with LEMD, MAD, the full airport name, Madrid, ES, local time 19:55 UTC+2, elevation 1998 ft, position 40.4934N 003.5722W and buttons for Open airport, Weather, NOTAMs and Show on Ops Map, and a footer reading move, open, weather, 28 results and on-device search" width="2880" height="1800" caption=":kbd-chord{k="K"}: one search across airports, pages, your own records and actions, with the highlighted row previewed on the right." variant="web"} ::

How to take the desk tour

1. Click the Guided tours key in the top bar (on your first visit it reads "New here? Take a guided tour" and opens by itself). The panel is a menu of four walks, each with a one-line summary and its length: The desk (2 min), Duty & FTL (5 min), Logbook (5 min) and Watch (4 min). The desk you are on sits first, tagged On this desk; the others say which page they open.
2. Click Start on The desk (later Take again, or Resume if you left it part-way). Follow the twenty-one stops: one per sidebar row and one for the sidebar's collapse key, then the command field, the tour key, the bell, the theme cycle, the shortcuts key and the clock.
3. The tour ends on Settings > Help & onboarding, where the replay rows live for all four walks; Done takes you back to the Overview. Hiding the key from the top bar, and showing it again, is done on that page only.

How the browser behaves

• Desk updates itself. There is no update banner and nothing to click. A new build is adopted at once on an untouched page or a hidden tab, never over a focused field or unsaved work, and after a quiet pause when you are active - a short toast, "Updating Pilot EFB to the latest version.", says why the page reloaded.
• One database, shared between tabs. One tab holds the local database and every other Desk tab in the same browser works through it. A second tab may briefly show "Waiting for another tab": the tab that holds the database has not answered yet, this one connects on its own when it does and takes over if that tab closes, and Reload also works.
• At most two browsers. Your account can be open in up to two browsers at the same time; a browser counts as active while it has checked in within the last 20 minutes, and the iOS app never counts. A third browser lands on Pilot EFB Desk is open elsewhere, which lists the browsers signed in right now with Sign out and continue here on each, plus Check again and Sign out of this browser. The browser you signed out sees "This browser was signed out" at its next sign-in. Settings > Privacy & security

  Desk sessions shows the same list at any time.

• The tab is named after the page. The browser tab reads "Flight Brief · Pilot EFB Desk", "Logbook · Pilot EFB Desk" and so on, so the desk can be picked out of a crowded tab strip and history lists the page, not a dozen identical entries.
• Install it as an app. Desk is installable from the browser's own install control, so it opens in its own window like anything else on the desk. It is offline-first the way the app is - your records and saved briefings survive a connection drop - but fresh weather, NOTAMs, roster data and sync need a connection.

On iPhone and iPad

The iOS app has a guest mode and a free tier; Desk has neither. The phone keeps its own onboarding walk, its own subscription (Pilot EFB Pro, bought in the App Store) and its tab bar. What the two share is your account and your data: sign in on both and your logbook, duties, flights and watched stations sync between them. Pilot EFB Desk on the web is the iOS guide's view of the same desk.

Troubleshooting

"That email and password do not match." If you created the account with Google, click Continue with Google instead; otherwise use Forgot? to reset the password. After several failures the screen asks you to wait a moment before trying again.

The disclaimer appeared again. It returns only when the disclaimer version changes, for every user at once. Tick and accept once more.

The button says Subscribe, not Start 2-day free trial. The account has already had its Desk free trial, one per person. The plan starts at the end of checkout instead.

"Free trial not available" after checkout. The card had already started a Desk trial, or the account had one. The trial was cancelled and nothing was charged; choose a plan again and subscribe without a trial.

"This browser cannot run the database." Private and incognito windows and some older browsers do not provide the storage Desk needs. Open app.pilotefb.com in a normal Chrome, Firefox or Safari window.

"Another tab runs a different version." An update just landed. Reload this tab; if the message stays, reload the other tab too.

"Local database is damaged." The browser's copy of your data can no longer be read. Click Reset local database to start from a clean store; your account's cloud backup restores on the next sign-in, and anything saved in this browser since the last backup is lost.

"Pilot EFB Desk is open elsewhere." Two other browsers are already active on your account. Pick one on the list and click Sign out and continue here, or Check again once one of them has gone quiet for 20 minutes. Your iPhone and iPad are never signed out by this.

The setup did not appear. It is offered once per account and only to an unconfigured one. If the phone already set you up, or another browser skipped it, the desk opens straight away. Settings > Help & onboarding still holds the tour, and every setup answer lives in Settings.

Where next

• Overview - the masthead, the station board and the NOTAM rail you just landed on.
• Keyboard and command deck - every chord, and what Cmd+K can find.
• Settings and sync - home base, duty rules, units, appearance and the sync bridge to the phone.
• Pilot EFB Desk - plans and the trial terms.