Demo Data

The Demo Data settings card loads a complete, pre-built workspace into a Space of your choice - tasks, projects, tags, notes, and (if you're on Pro) contacts, companies, activities, and CRM relationships. It's designed for three kinds of use:

Demos and presentations - you need a realistic workspace to screenshot, screen-share, or walk someone through
Exploring PrimeTask's features - you want to see how a real project, a real CRM pipeline, or a real PrimeFlow canvas looks and behaves without building one from scratch
Onboarding a new teammate - you want them to see PrimeTask populated with content so they can poke around instead of staring at an empty sidebar

You pick one of eight templates, pick an empty Space, and click Load Demo Data. PrimeTask fills that Space with the template's content and reloads so everything is visible immediately.

Demo data is also offered during the first-run Setup Wizard - if you picked a demo template there, you're already using demo data and this card is where you manage, replace, or clear it. See Setup Wizard for the initial setup flow.

Demo data is yours to experiment with

Once loaded, the demo data lives in your Space exactly like anything else you've created - real tasks you can edit, real projects you can rename, real notes you can extend. You can use it as a starting point for your own work, not just as a throwaway sandbox. If you want a clean slate later, the card has a Clear Demo Data button that removes everything the template added.

What you can do

Pick one of eight templates

covering different industries and workflows

Preview what each template contains

tasks, projects, contacts, companies, activities, tags, notes, PrimeFlow canvas, and custom workflows (where applicable)

Load the template into an empty Space

of your choice

See which template is currently loaded

in a Space, and when it was loaded

Clear the demo data

from a Space with a single button, freeing it to load something else

How to open Demo Data

Settings card: Open Settings from the sidebar, then open the Demo Data card.
Settings search: Open Settings and type demo, sample, template, or mock.
Command palette: Press ⌘+K (or Ctrl+K), type demo, and pick the entry.

Things worth knowing

Two ways to load demo data - this card and the Setup Wizard

There are two entry points to loading demo data in PrimeTask:

This settings card - any time, into any empty Space you pick. This is where you manage demo data after setup, clear it when you're done, or load a different template into a different Space.
The first-run Setup Wizard - during initial setup, the wizard offers an optional Add Demo Data step that lets you start your very first Space with a template pre-loaded. See Setup Wizard for the full wizard walkthrough.

Both paths use the same underlying templates and the same loading mechanism. If you ran the Setup Wizard and picked a template there, the content you see when you open PrimeTask for the first time came from demo data - and this settings card is where you manage it from that point on (including clearing it when you're ready to start your real work).

Eight templates, each a different kind of workspace

PrimeTask ships with eight built-in demo templates, each representing a distinct type of workspace someone might use PrimeTask for:

Creative Agency - client projects, deliverables, and team coordination for a design or marketing agency
Freelance Designer - solo freelance workflow with client tasks, invoices, and a personal pipeline
Software Development - product and engineering work, sprints, bug tracking, feature planning
Game Development Studio - game production pipeline with design, art, code, and playtesting tasks
Audio Production - music or audio post-production projects with sessions, tracks, and deliverables
Content Creator - video/content creation pipeline with ideation, recording, editing, and publishing tasks
Startup Founder - early-stage startup workflow with product, fundraising, hiring, and go-to-market tasks
Personal Life & Goals - personal productivity, routines, goal tracking, and life admin

Each template is a full workspace snapshot - it's not just a task list, it's an entire scenario complete with projects, tags, notes, and often a PrimeFlow canvas and a custom statuses/priorities workflow that matches the industry.

Pick a template close to your real work

If you're brand new and trying to figure out how to set up your own Space, the template closest to your actual work is the best starting point. Load it, see how it's organised, then either adapt it to your real needs or clear it and build your own Space using the template as a reference.

Loading a template

To load demo data:

Step 1

Pick a template from the template selector. The card shows a preview of each template with its icon, description, and counts of the content it contains (tasks, projects, contacts, companies, activities, tags, notes, and whether it includes a PrimeFlow canvas or a custom workflow).

Step 2

Pick a target Space. The selector defaults to your currently active Space.

Make sure the target Space is empty

demo data can only be loaded into Spaces that don't have any existing content. If the Space already has tasks or projects, the card will tell you and disable the Load button.

Step 4

Click Load Demo Data. PrimeTask populates the Space and reloads the app so everything appears immediately.

After loading, the card shows a confirmation with the template name and the date you loaded it, so you can always tell at a glance which template is currently in a given Space.

Why the target Space has to be empty

Demo data is designed to be loaded cleanly - the template's tasks, projects, tags, and everything else go into a fresh Space with no existing content to conflict with. If you tried to load a template into a Space that already has your real work, you'd get a jumbled mix of real tasks and demo tasks with no clean way to separate them again. The empty-Space requirement is a safeguard against that.

The recommended pattern is to create a dedicated Space just for experimenting with demo data. Open Spaces Settings, create a new Space called something like "Sandbox" or "Demo", and use that as your target for every template you want to try. You can load, explore, clear, and reload templates in that Space without ever touching your real Work or Personal Space.

One Sandbox Space, many templates tried

Once you have a dedicated Sandbox Space, you can load a template, explore it, clear it, and load a different one without leaving the card. Each load/clear cycle takes a few seconds, so you can genuinely compare eight different workspace styles in a few minutes.

Demo data doesn't work in iCloud-synced Spaces

The card explicitly blocks loading demo data into Spaces that use iCloud Sync. If you pick an iCloud-synced Space as the target, the card shows a warning telling you to use a private or File Sync Space instead. The reason: demo data is a local-only operation designed for experimentation, and flooding an iCloud Space with demo content - which would then sync to every other Mac on your Apple ID - is almost never what you want.

The solution is the same as above: create a private Space (no sync) or a File Sync Space just for demos, and use that as your target. See Spaces Settings for the Space creation walkthrough.

Clearing demo data

The Clear Demo Data button removes every task, project, contact, company, activity, note, and other item the template added to the Space. It's the opposite of the load action and puts the Space back to the state it was in before you loaded the template. After clearing, the card tells you how many items were removed, then reloads the app.

Clearing is only available if there's demo data in the selected Space - the button is disabled otherwise so you can't accidentally run it on a Space that has your real work (which, as a rule, can't contain demo data anyway because demo data only loads into empty Spaces).

**Warning - Clear Demo Data is irreversible:** Once you clear the demo data from a Space, there's no undo. If you've edited the template - renamed a project, added a custom tag, extended a task's description - those edits go away along with the rest of the demo content. If you want to keep some of the demo items, either save them to a different Space first, or don't run the Clear action. The template can always be loaded again later, but any customisations you made to it will be gone.

Loading and clearing both reload the app

Both Load Demo Data and Clear Demo Data reload the PrimeTask window after they finish - this is so every view (tasks, projects, CRM, calendar, etc.) sees the new state immediately, without any stale data lingering in memory. The reload takes a second or two and doesn't affect any other Space or any settings - only the view you're looking at refreshes.

What Pro unlocks in the template preview

The template preview shows slightly more detail on Pro:

Contact, company, and activity counts appear on the preview when PrimeCRM is enabled - templates that include a CRM pipeline tell you how many of each they'll add.
Custom workflow badge appears when custom statuses are enabled - templates that include a custom status workflow (e.g., Design Pipeline with Sketching → Refining → Approved → Shipped) surface that as a preview item.

Loading any template still works on every license; the full richness of what comes with each template - especially the CRM pipeline and custom workflow content - is most useful when you have the Pro features active to see them in the rendered app. See License Settings to upgrade.

Demo data is a single-Space operation

Each Load or Clear action targets exactly one Space. You can have demo data in one Space and real work in another, with no interaction between them at all - Spaces are fully isolated. So if you want to experiment with a Creative Agency template while keeping your Work Space intact, pick an empty third Space and load the template there. Your Work Space isn't touched.

Common questions

"I want to try PrimeTask with realistic data before setting up my real work. What's the fastest way?"

Open Settings → Spaces and create a new empty Space called "Sandbox". Then open Settings → Demo Data, pick a template that matches the kind of work you do, set the target to Sandbox, and click Load Demo Data. In a few seconds you'll have a fully-populated workspace to explore. When you're ready to build your real Space, create another Space for your actual work and leave the Sandbox as your exploration playground.

"Can I load demo data into my main Work Space?"

Not directly - demo data only loads into empty Spaces, and your Work Space almost certainly isn't empty. If you want a workspace with demo content, create a separate Space for it. If you genuinely want to start your Work Space fresh with a template, you'd need to move or delete your existing Work Space content first - which is a much bigger operation and one we'd recommend backing up before (Data Management).

"I loaded a template but some of the content isn't showing up."

Check whether the template includes content that depends on a Pro feature. Templates can include contacts, companies, CRM activities, custom statuses, and PrimeFlow canvases - all of these are fully usable on Pro but some features may not render without the matching Pro feature enabled. The preview on the card shows which bits a template includes; if one of those is greyed out in your active Space, that's why. See License Settings to unlock the full set.

"I want to keep some of the demo data and add it to my real Space."

Demo data items are regular PrimeTask items once they're loaded, so you can copy them using PrimeTask's normal content-copying flows - SpacesCare sharing (see Spaces Settings) can push items from your demo Space into your real Space, or you can manually recreate them in your real Space using the demo version as a reference.

"I loaded a template and now my app just reloaded. Is that normal?"

Yes. Loading or clearing demo data triggers a page reload so every view in PrimeTask sees the new content immediately - without the reload, some views would still show stale data until you manually navigated away and back. The reload takes a second and doesn't change anything outside the target Space.

"Can I load more than one template into the same Space?"

No. Each Space can hold one template at a time. If you want to load a second template, first click Clear Demo Data to remove the current template, then load the new one. Or load the second template into a different Space - Spaces are independent, so you can have Creative Agency in one Space and Software Development in another running side by side.

"I tried to load a template into my iCloud Space and got a warning."

Demo data is blocked for iCloud-synced Spaces on purpose - it's a local experimentation tool, not something you want flooding your actual cloud-synced workspace. The recommendation is to create a new private Space (no sync) or a File Sync Space specifically for demos, and use that as your target. See Spaces Settings for the Space creation walkthrough.

"What's the difference between loading demo data and running the interactive tutorials?"

They're different tools for different goals:

Where to go next

If you want to…	Read this
See the Setup Wizard's demo data step in context	Setup Wizard
Create a Sandbox Space for demo data	Spaces Settings
Understand how Spaces isolate content	Spaces Overview
Run the interactive tutorials instead	Help & Documentation Settings
Back up your real Spaces before experimenting	Data Management
Start learning PrimeTask from the top	Welcome to PrimeTask
Follow the quick start guide	Quick Start Guide
Browse all settings cards	Settings Overview