A communication terminal shares data with another communication terminal. The communication terminal includes circuitry. The circuitry receives, from a communication management apparatus that manages the data shared with the another communication terminal, storage location information representing a storage location of background image data transmitted from the another communication terminal, and transmits a download request to an image storing apparatus corresponding to the storage location to request download of the background image data. The circuitry further starts downloading the background image data from the image storing apparatus and receives, from the communication management apparatus, stroke data of a stroke image rendered on the another communication terminal.