Terms of Service

The 30-second version:

• Be 13 or older. Sign in with email, Google, Apple, or Microsoft.
• You own everything you write. We get a limited license to store and display it back to you and to people you choose to share it with.
• Don't use DiaryVault for harmful or illegal content, and don't mess with other people's accounts.
• All DiaryVault features are currently available without a subscription. Paid plans may be offered later. Existing subscriptions remain valid and manageable.
• You can leave anytime by deleting your account.
• If you have questions, write to stephen@diaryvault.com.

By accessing or using DiaryVault (the "Service"), operated by DiaryVault, Inc. ("we", "our", "us"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

DiaryVault is available as a mobile app on iOS and Android, and as a web application at diaryvault.com. These terms apply to all platforms equally.

These terms incorporate by reference our Privacy Policy. By agreeing to these terms, you also acknowledge the data practices described there.

Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use DiaryVault. If you are in a jurisdiction with a higher age of digital consent (such as 16 in parts of the European Economic Area), you must meet that age. By creating an account, you confirm you meet the applicable age requirement.

Account credentials

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials. You may sign in using email and password, Google, Apple, or Microsoft. Each sign-in method creates a separate account and we do not automatically link them.

One person per account

Each account is intended for a single person. Don't share account credentials with others.

You may

• Create unlimited personal journal entries (subject to plan limits)
• Import photos and videos from your device library and let DiaryVault generate AI entries from them
• Use Echo to chat, reflect, and ask questions about your own journal
• Translate your entries between supported languages
• Request a copy of your account data
• Generate share cards (Year Review, Identity Snapshot) for your own use

You may not

• Use the Service to create or share content that is illegal, threatening, harassing, defamatory, or that depicts the abuse of children
• Upload content you don't own or don't have permission to share
• Attempt to access another user's account, data, or vault without their invitation
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract our source code or AI prompts
• Use automated tools to scrape, bulk-access, or stress-test the Service
• Resell or redistribute access to the Service
• Circumvent usage limits, premium gating, rate limiting, or other security measures
• Misrepresent your identity to gain access to a vault you weren't invited to
• Use AI features to generate content that violates the policies of our underlying AI providers (Anthropic, Google, Groq)

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules, with or without notice depending on severity.

You own your journal

You retain full ownership of all journal entries, photos, videos, perspectives, and other content you create or upload to DiaryVault. Your journal is yours.

License to us

By using the Service, you grant us a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to store, process, transmit, and display your content for the purpose of providing the Service to you. This license includes:

• Storing and serving your content from our infrastructure
• Processing photos through AI to generate journal entries
• Translating your content when you request a translation
• Generating identity insights, eras, and share cards from your data
• Backing up your content for reliability

This license ends when you delete the relevant content, or when you delete your account.

Our property

DiaryVault, including its design, code, AI prompts and pipelines, branding, and documentation, is the intellectual property of DiaryVault, Inc. The Service is licensed to you, not sold. You may not use our trademarks or branding without permission.

Current access

All DiaryVault features are currently available without a subscription. No payment card is required for current access. Paid plans may be offered in the future, and current families will be informed before any change applies to them.

Existing subscriptions

Subscriptions purchased before the current free-access period remain valid under the terms that applied when they were purchased. All features are currently available without a new subscription. Existing subscribers may continue, manage, or cancel through the original billing provider.

Auto-renewal

Subscriptions purchased through the App Store or Google Play auto-renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current billing period. You can manage and cancel your subscription in your device settings. Web subscriptions through Stripe auto-renew on the same cadence and can be cancelled in your account settings.

Coupon codes

We may offer promotional coupon codes that grant temporary premium access. Coupon terms, including duration and feature scope, are specified at the time of redemption. When a coupon trial ends, you must subscribe to maintain premium access. Active coupon trials don't auto-convert to paid subscriptions.

Refunds

Refunds for App Store and Google Play purchases are handled by Apple and Google, respectively, under their refund policies. For web (Stripe) purchases, contact stephen@diaryvault.com within 14 days of purchase and we will work with you in good faith. EU and UK users may have additional statutory cooling-off rights.

Changes to pricing

We may change subscription pricing in the future. Existing subscribers will be notified at least 30 days before any price change affects their next renewal, and may cancel before the new price applies.

DiaryVault uses AI extensively to generate journal entries, derive identity insights, power Echo, translate content, and produce reflections.

AI-generated content is a creative interpretation of the inputs you provide and may be incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading. It is not a factual record of events.

Not professional advice

AI outputs are not medical, psychological, financial, or legal advice. Echo is a reflection tool, not a therapist. Identity Snapshot, Trajectory, and Patterns are heuristic interpretations of your entries, not psychological assessments. They will sometimes be wrong or surprising. Do not rely on AI outputs for any decision that should involve a qualified professional.

How AI is used

• Generated drafts: Echo can prepare a written draft of the day from your DiaryVault entries, captures, and the contents and metadata of photos you imported into DiaryVault. Echo does not read your calendar, email, messages, location pings, or browsing history. Drafts are review-first: nothing saves to your vault until you approve.
• Echo: suggests candidate connections (people, places, feelings, themes) when you create a Memory Card; reflects across Your Constellation when you ask; and can prepare daily drafts of the day for your review. You verify before anything is saved.
• Identity insights: Identity Snapshot, Trajectory, Patterns, and Eras are derived summaries of your entry history.
• Translation: AI translation aims to preserve meaning but may not capture nuance or wordplay perfectly.
• Background processing: photo monitoring and scheduled summaries run on a periodic schedule; we don't guarantee real-time processing.

Provider dependence and outcomes

AI features depend on third-party providers (Anthropic, Google, Groq). If a provider has an outage or applies content moderation that blocks a particular request, AI features may be temporarily unavailable. We continuously work to improve AI quality, but we do not guarantee any specific outcome, level of accuracy, or emotional impact.

We work hard to keep DiaryVault available. We don't guarantee uninterrupted service.

• We may temporarily suspend access for maintenance, updates, or migrations. Where possible, we'll announce planned downtime in advance.
• We may experience unplanned outages. We commit to communicating during incidents and to documenting what happened afterward when relevant.
• Your local device cache lets you read your most recent entries offline, even when our servers are unavailable.
• Some features depend on third-party services (AI providers, push notification delivery, payment processors). When those services have outages, the dependent features may be unavailable.

Deleting your account

You may delete your account at any time through Settings → Delete Account in the app, or by emailing stephen@diaryvault.com. Upon deletion, your journal entries, photos, videos, vault memberships, perspectives, and derived identity data will be permanently removed from our servers within 30 days. Aggregated, anonymized analytics that cannot be tied back to you may be retained.

Suspension or termination by us

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, threaten the security or integrity of the Service, or expose us to legal risk. Where possible, we will give notice and an opportunity to remedy. For severe violations (such as content that endangers others), suspension may be immediate.

Effect of termination

Termination ends your right to access the Service. Provisions that by their nature should survive (intellectual property, disclaimers, limitations of liability, governing law) survive termination.

Service "as is"

DiaryVault is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will be error-free, secure, uninterrupted, or that AI-generated content will be accurate or suitable for any particular purpose.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, DiaryVault, Inc. and its officers, employees, and contractors shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including loss of data, loss of profits, or loss of journal entries, arising from your use of or inability to use the Service. Our total cumulative liability for any claim arising from these terms or the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or $100, whichever is greater.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless DiaryVault, Inc. from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your use of the Service, your content, or your violation of these terms or applicable law.

Force majeure

Neither party is liable for delays or failures to perform caused by circumstances beyond reasonable control, including natural disasters, cyber-attacks, infrastructure failures at third-party providers, or governmental actions.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to conflict of law principles. The federal and state courts located in San Francisco County, California have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these terms or the Service, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

If any provision of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest of the terms remain in effect.

If you are using DiaryVault from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws.

We may update these terms over time. When we do, here's how it works.

• Material changes, meaning meaningful changes to your rights, our obligations, or how the Service works, will be communicated through the app and by email at least 14 days before they take effect.
• Minor changes, such as typo fixes, contact info updates, and formatting improvements, will be reflected in the document with an updated "Last updated" date.
• The current version is always available at diaryvault.com/terms.
• Your continued use of DiaryVault after a material change takes effect indicates acceptance of the updated terms. If you do not accept a change, you may delete your account before the effective date.