Getting Started
Welcome to MAXQDA Tailwind! Ready to start analyzing your data with MAXQDA Tailwind’s AI-powered tools? This guide will walk you through the first steps.
🚀 What You Need to Get Started
Before you start working with MAXQDA Tailwind, make sure you have the following:
- A MAXQDA Tailwind License: A valid license is required to use MAXQDA Tailwind.
- If you need help with purchasing or managing your license, visit our “Licensing & Subscriptions” page.
- A MAXQDA Account: You need a MAXQDA Account to log in and use MAXQDA Tailwind.
- For steps on creating and managing your account, see “Managing Your Account.”
Once you have these ready, you can begin creating projects and analyzing your data with MAXQDA Tailwind.
Logging In
You can log in to MAXQDA Tailwind using your MAXQDA Account: https://tailwind.maxqda.com/login.
🪐 MAXQDA Tailwind at a Glance
MAXQDA Tailwind is your AI-powered workspace for making sense of complex data. Start by creating a project and importing your documents; Tailwind will automatically generate summaries for you.
Add topics to find patterns in your data, either by entering them yourself or using AI extraction, and Tailwind will create summaries for these topics as well. You can create summary tables to compare topics across documents in a clear table view. Whenever you are ready, you can chat with your data to explore your findings in a conversational manner.
If you use MAXQDA, you can take your Tailwind projects further by exporting them for seamless import into MAXQDA, where you can deepen your analysis.
🧭 Navigating the Interface
The MAXQDA Tailwind interface consists of two primary components: the navigation sidebar on the left and the main workspace on the right. The image below demonstrates this layout.

- When you first log in, you will see the
Projects dashboard. This is the home page of MAXQDA Tailwind, the central hub where you create and manage your projects. To get started, click + New Project.
- After you open a project by clicking on it, additional menu items appear automatically, including
Data,
Topics,
Summary Tables, and
Chat. You’ll be redirected directly to the
Data section of your project, where you can click + Import to start importing documents, as shown in the image below.
- Navigate to the other workspaces by clicking on their respective menu items in the navigation sidebar.

Collapsing and Expanding the Sidebar
The sidebar navigation, located on the left, allows you to access various menu items for managing different aspects of your project. You can minimize this sidebar to maximize your working space in the main panel:
- To hide the sidebar, hover over the navigation bar and click
to collapse it.
- To show the sidebar again, click
to expand it.