Last updated July 14, 2026
Privacy, in plain words.
Dear Self Diary is built so that your diary belongs to you alone. This page says exactly what we store, what we can never read, and what you control. No legal maze — if anything here is unclear, ask us.
The short version
Everything you write is encrypted on your device before it travels to us, with a key made from your passphrase — a key we never receive. We store sealed pages we cannot open. We run no ads, no analytics, no trackers, and we never sell or share your information with anyone.
What we store but cannot read
Your journal entries, moods, energy, sleep notes, gratitude, goals, scrapbook pages, photos, and vlogs are all end-to-end encrypted. They reach our server as ciphertext — scrambled bytes — and stay that way. When you share something with a friend, your device re-encrypts it so that only that friend can open it; the same is true of the reactions they send back. We cannot read, search, analyze, or recover any of it. Shared parcels are passing things by design: unless the receiver chooses to keep one, it and its media are deleted from our server a day after it's first seen.
What we can see
A few things are visible to us by necessity or by design: the email address you sign in with; your username, display name, short bio, and profile picture if you add them (they are social — accepted friends see them too); who your accepted friends are; and housekeeping details like the dates entries exist and how much storage they use. We can see that you wrote on a Tuesday — never what you wrote.
Cookies and email
We set exactly one cookie: it keeps you signed in, and it is never used to track you. The only emails we send are the sign-in links you request. No newsletters, no nudges, unless you ask for them someday.
Your passphrase is truly yours
Because we never hold your key, we cannot reset your passphrase or recover your diary if you lose both it and your recovery code. That is the honest cost of privacy this strong — please keep your recovery code somewhere safe.
Deleting your data
Settings offers a full decrypted export any time, and a delete-account button that permanently removes your account and every sealed page, photo, and share tied to it — immediately, with no grace period and no hidden copies kept.
Changes and questions
If this policy ever changes in a way that matters, we will say so plainly on this page before it takes effect. Questions or worries: hello@dearselfdiary.example — we read everything.