Your memories are not our business model.

What Today Was stores

We store your verified email address, random account identifier, session records, passkey public credentials, and basic security timestamps so you can sign in. Passkeys never give us your fingerprint, face scan, device PIN, or private key.

Journal text, original transcripts, settings, voice recordings, and photos are encrypted on your device and stored in the app’s local vault. Today Was does not upload journal content to its servers in the current device-only mode.

Legacy exception: an account used before device-only storage may still have an older encrypted cloud copy of entries, settings, or media. The current app writes new journal content only to the local vault. During a temporary compatibility grace period, an already-open older app release may still finish an encrypted write to that legacy copy so an in-progress memory is not lost. We permanently retire that compatibility path before enabling deletion. Removal then requires a complete local migration plus a downloaded backup that the app has just reopened, decrypted, and verified.

Metadata we can see

For memories created in the current device-only mode, Today Was does not receive journal record identifiers, dates, attachment types, or attachment sizes. A pre-device-only encrypted cloud copy can include that legacy record metadata until you migrate and remove it. We can still receive account, authentication, abuse-prevention, and ordinary hosting/security logs when you sign in or use the service. We do not use them for advertising.

A Weather & Atlas relay request is different from a journal upload: our infrastructure must transiently receive the requested location or city query and date to send it to Open-Meteo. The relay is designed not to write raw coordinates, dates, or city-search text into the account database, commerce records, journal, or application analytics/logs. This does not make the request anonymous at the network layer; hosting and security systems may still process ordinary request metadata under their own retention controls.

Store purchases and account-bound access

Apple and Google, not Today Was, process App Store and Google Play payments. If you buy Full Journal or Weather & Atlas, Today Was may retain account-bound, store-verified entitlement metadata such as the store, product, entitlement state, purchase or expiration time, and a one-way transaction reference. This is used to restore the benefit on the applicable store and to authorize the paid weather relay. We do not receive your payment-card details, and these records do not contain journal text, recordings, photos, or location coordinates.

Full Journal is a one-time journal unlock. It includes 12 months of Weather & Atlas; after that period, Weather & Atlas can be continued only through an optional monthly or annual store subscription where offered. Cancelling that subscription stops future renewals and paid-service access; it never deletes a saved memory, photo, recording, weather snapshot, location pin, or export. Store purchase records remain subject to Apple's or Google's own retention and refund rules.

Voice transcription and private polish

Today Was's shipped cleanup and search run after your vault is unlocked on your device. In the iPhone app, live and final speech recognition are required to run on device. On Android, speech recognition is provided by the device's configured recognition service; whether that service processes audio only on-device or externally is controlled by the device and service settings. In a browser, live recognition is supplied by the browser or operating system and its vendor may process audio under its own settings and privacy terms. You can always type instead, and recording remains separate from live transcription.

Optional location and weather context

Automatic context remains approximate. When an active, server-verified Weather & Atlas entitlement authorizes a request, your device rounds its latitude and longitude to one decimal place. Today Was's authenticated relay temporarily processes that rounded location and selected date to request weather from Open-Meteo Professional. The relay is designed not to persist raw coordinates or dates in the account database, commerce records, journal, or application analytics/logs.

City or postal-code search is a manual alternative. The authenticated relay temporarily processes the search so you can choose a matching place; it does not create an exact device pin or persist the city search. Today Was stores the selected place label, rounded regional coordinates, and complete daily and hourly weather snapshot only inside your encrypted entry.

Open-Meteo receives the weather or city-search inputs and network information needed to answer the relay's request. The returned weather, rounded place, timezone, and moon context are kept only inside the encrypted journal entry on your device. You can remove the snapshot before saving and turn automatic context off in Settings.

The combined Exact pin, weather, and satellite preview flow is a separate, explicit per-memory choice; it is never added automatically. When you choose this flow, Today Was's authenticated relay transiently processes the exact coordinates and requested date to make the Open-Meteo Professional lookup. It is designed not to store the exact point in your account records, commerce metadata, journal, or application analytics/logs.

When you open inline satellite imagery in the memory composer or Explore, your device requests imagery for the displayed map area directly from Esri's ArcGIS Online service. Esri receives that displayed geographic area together with network and request information such as your IP address. Apple Maps receives the exact coordinate only if you explicitly choose to open the full satellite map on iPhone; an installed map app, such as Google Maps, receives it only if you explicitly open the full satellite map on Android; and Google Maps receives it only if you explicitly open the full satellite map on the web. Apple, Google, Esri, and any selected Android map app process those requests under their own terms and privacy policies.

These external requests can occur even if you later discard the draft. If you remove the local exact pin, it removes that pin from the memory but cannot retract a weather request already made to Open-Meteo, an imagery request already made to Esri, or a full-map request you explicitly opened with Apple Maps, Google Maps, or another Android map app. The weather snapshot can remain in the encrypted memory after the exact coordinates are removed.

Weather data attribution and limits

Weather data are supplied by Open-Meteo and are offered under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Today Was presents and may transform those data for readability, such as converting units and drawing charts. Open-Meteo does not endorse Today Was. Weather information is model data rather than an on-site observation and is not for safety-critical decisions.

Service providers

Cloudflare infrastructure hosts the application and, for an authenticated paid weather lookup, may relay its selected location/date input to Open-Meteo. Resend delivers one-time sign-in emails. Apple and Google process store purchases and subscriptions. Open-Meteo supplies weather and city search when you optionally request approximate context, manually choose a city, or explicitly choose an exact pin. Esri supplies inline satellite imagery when you open it in the composer or Explore and receives the displayed map area. Apple Maps on iPhone, an installed map app on Android, and Google Maps on the web receive an exact coordinate only when you explicitly open the full satellite map. These providers process the limited account, authentication, operational, payment, or location information needed for those requested services. They do not receive your local journal text, recordings, or photos. We do not sell personal information and do not run behavioral advertising.

Recovery keys

Your Today Was account and vault recovery key serve different purposes. Email or a passkey proves which account is yours. The recovery key decrypts a matching local vault or encrypted backup that you still possess. The key contains no journal entries and is not a backup; by itself it cannot restore data missing from a device. We do not receive or store that key in normal operation, and support cannot recover or reset it.

Android app, updates, and store purchases

The Android app keeps its encrypted vault in the app's persistent local web storage. A normal update installed over the existing Today Was app preserves that storage when the application identity, signing lineage, and journal origin remain the same. We do not use Android Auto Backup or device-transfer backup to copy an encrypted vault to another device.

Uninstalling Today Was, clearing its app storage, or using an operating-system reset can remove the device-local vault. Before doing any of those things, create and securely store a private export. An App Store or Google Play purchase does not transfer an encrypted vault or unlock entitlement between the two stores. A store purchase can be associated with your Today Was account only for the verified entitlement and paid-service authorization described above; it does not create a server copy of your journal.

Retention and deletion

We keep account data and, if you use paid service, our limited entitlement metadata while your account is active. We do not create a server-side journal backup in device-only mode. The temporary legacy exception described above can remain until you remove it or delete the account. One-time links and authentication challenges expire quickly. You can delete your account from Settings; that removes Today Was's account and entitlement metadata but does not cancel or erase a purchase held by Apple or Google. Open-Meteo, Cloudflare, Resend, Apple, Google, Esri, and any selected map app may retain limited operational or security data under their own terms. Removing an exact pin from a local memory does not withdraw a request already sent to Open-Meteo or Esri, or an exact-coordinate map request you explicitly opened with Apple Maps, Google Maps, or another Android map app.

Your choices

You can export your decrypted journal, remove entries, lock a device, sign out, or delete the account. Privacy requests can be sent to hello@chargedalpha.com. We may need to verify the request through your account.

For step-by-step account deletion instructions, including how to remove device-local encrypted journal data, visit the account deletion page.

For product help, troubleshooting, and account support, visit the Today Was support page.

Children and changes

Today Was is not directed to children under 13 or the higher minimum age required where they live. If this notice changes materially, we will update the effective date and provide an appropriate notice in the product.

Contact

Questions or privacy requests may be sent to Crown Creek Capital LLC at hello@chargedalpha.com. Today Was is operated from Minnesota, USA.