We've written this the way we'd want to read it — in plain English, without the legal maze. If you want the one-sentence version: we store your encrypted notes, charge you a fair subscription, and that's our entire relationship with your data.
Last updated: March 2025
Free Notes is a private journaling service available at freenotes.me. When we say "we", "us", or "Free Notes" in this document, we mean the people running this service.
When we say "you", we mean you — the person reading this and using the service.
This is the most important thing we can tell you, so we're saying it first.
Before your notes are saved to our database, they are encrypted on your device using AES encryption — the same standard used by banks and governments. What gets stored on our servers is scrambled, unreadable ciphertext. The only key that can unscramble it is derived from your Google account ID, which never leaves your browser.
✓ We cannot read your notes.
✓ Our engineers cannot read your notes.
✓ If our database were ever hacked, the attacker would find only unreadable encrypted data.
✓ We do not use your notes to train AI, serve advertising, or for any other purpose.
This is a deliberate architectural choice, not just a policy promise. We have designed the system so that reading your notes is technically impossible for us, not merely against our rules.
We hold the minimum data necessary to run the service:
Your email address — so we know which Google account is linked to an active subscription. This is stored in our database as a document ID.
Your encrypted journal content — stored as unreadable ciphertext, as described above.
Subscription status — whether your subscription is active, which plan you're on, and when it renews. This comes from Stripe when you subscribe.
Timestamps — when your journal was last updated. This is operational data that helps the sync work correctly.
We do not hold your name, your address, your payment card details, your phone number, or any other personal information.
We charge a subscription fee. That is our entire business model.
$4.99 per month, or $39 per year. Payments are processed by Stripe. We receive the amount after Stripe's processing fee.
We do not run advertising. We do not sell data. We do not have investors requiring us to "monetise the user base." The subscription is the product. Your privacy is the point.
✓ You pay us. We provide the service. That is the whole relationship.
Subscriptions renew automatically — monthly or annually depending on the plan you chose. You'll receive a receipt from Stripe each time you're charged.
You can cancel at any time through Stripe's customer portal. When you cancel, your access continues until the end of the period you've already paid for. We do not offer refunds for partial periods, but we will never charge you after you've cancelled.
If a payment fails, Stripe will retry automatically. If payment continues to fail, your subscription will be cancelled and your access will end. We'll send you an email before that happens.
You own your notes. You can have everything deleted at any time.
To delete your account and all associated data, email us at hello@freenotes.me. We will delete your subscriber record and your encrypted journal from our database within 7 days and confirm when it's done.
⚠️ Because your notes are encrypted with a key derived from your Google account, if you lose access to your Google account your notes cannot be recovered. This is the nature of end-to-end encryption — it's what makes your privacy genuine. Please keep your Google account secure.
We use a small number of third party services to run Free Notes:
Google Firebase — stores your encrypted journal and handles authentication. Subject to Google's privacy policy.
Stripe — processes payments. We never see your card details. Subject to Stripe's privacy policy.
Netlify — hosts the website. Subject to Netlify's privacy policy.
We have chosen these services carefully. None of them have access to the readable content of your notes.
We use the minimum cookies necessary for the service to function — specifically, the authentication cookies that keep you signed in to your Google account. We do not use advertising cookies, tracking cookies, or analytics cookies.
We do not use Google Analytics or any other visitor tracking service. We have no idea how many people visit our website, and we prefer it that way.
Under GDPR and UK data protection law, you have the right to access the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or restrict how we use it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe we've handled your data incorrectly.
To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@freenotes.me. We will respond within 30 days.
If we need to change these terms in a way that meaningfully affects your rights or how we handle your data, we will email you at least 30 days before the change takes effect. You'll have the opportunity to cancel your subscription before the new terms apply.
We will not make surprise changes buried in a policy update that nobody reads. If something important changes, we'll tell you clearly and give you time to decide.
Free Notes is provided "as is." While we work hard to keep the service running reliably, we cannot guarantee 100% uptime and we are not liable for any loss of data or business arising from service interruptions.
You agree to use Free Notes for lawful purposes only. You agree not to attempt to access other users' accounts or interfere with the service.
These terms are governed by the laws of Scotland, United Kingdom.
If anything here is unclear, or if you have any questions about your data, please email us at hello@freenotes.me. We're real people and we'll reply.