Help for your private journal.

When you contact us

Tell us which phone or browser and system version you use, what you were trying to do, and what appeared on screen. Do not send a journal export, voice recording, private entry, passkey, one-time sign-in link, or recovery key. We will never ask you to disclose your recovery key.

Sign-in help

Request a new email link and use the newest message. Each link can be used only once and expires after 15 minutes. Enter the same email address you used when creating the account. Passkeys are optional; an email link remains available if a passkey is canceled or unavailable.

Vault and device storage

Your account signs you in, while your separate recovery key unlocks encrypted vault data already present on a device. Journal entries, recordings, photos, and settings are stored in the encrypted local vault on this device and do not automatically appear on another device. A recovery key does not transfer the journal by itself.

Before replacing a phone, clearing website data, or deleting the app, create a journal export from Settings and store it somewhere private. A journal export is decrypted and can include recordings, photos, approximate place, weather, and moon context.

A normal App Store or Google Play update installed over the existing Today Was app keeps the persistent local vault in place. Do not uninstall the app, clear its storage, or reset the phone as an update method: those actions can remove the local vault. Android Auto Backup and device-transfer backup are not used to move a Today Was vault to another device, so an export remains the safe way to move or preserve your journal.

Voice, photos, and reminders

If recording, speech recognition, photos, or reminders are unavailable, open your phone's Settings, select Today Was, and review the relevant permission. Native iPhone transcription runs on device. Android transcription uses the recognition service configured on that phone, which can have its own privacy and download settings. You can always type an entry without microphone or speech permission.

Location and weather

Local context is optional. Automatic context, enabled under Day context in Today Was Settings, remains approximate: the app rounds your location before requesting weather. With an active, server-verified Weather & Atlas entitlement, Today Was's authenticated relay temporarily processes the selected place and date to request weather from Open-Meteo Professional. It is designed not to add raw coordinates, dates, or city searches to the account database, commerce records, journal, or application analytics/logs. You can save any memory without location access. A city or postal code is a manual alternative; search for it and choose a result to attach that city's weather without creating an exact device pin.

For one memory, choose Pin exact location, weather & map preview. This explicit, per-memory flow is never automatic. It sends your current exact coordinates and the memory's requested date through the authenticated relay when Weather & Atlas access is active. The relay must see the requested point briefly to make the lookup; it does not create a server copy of the exact pin. For an older memory, the pin is where you are now while weather is for that memory's date at that current location.

Opening inline satellite imagery in the composer or Explore requests imagery for the displayed map area directly from Esri's ArcGIS Online service. Esri receives that displayed geographic area and associated network request information. Your exact coordinate is sent to Apple Maps only if you explicitly open the full satellite map on iPhone, to an installed map app only if you explicitly open the full map on Android, or to Google Maps only if you explicitly open the full satellite map on the web.

The exact pin and complete daily and hourly weather snapshot are saved only in the encrypted memory. Removing exact coordinates removes the local pin, but cannot retract requests already made to Open-Meteo or Esri, or a full-map request you explicitly opened with Apple Maps, Google Maps, or another Android map app. The weather snapshot can remain after the exact coordinates are removed.

Weather data are supplied by Open-Meteo under CC BY 4.0. Today Was formats the returned data for the journal; weather is modeled information rather than an on-site sensor reading.

Full Journal and Weather & Atlas

The Android app includes up to 10 journal days before the one-time Full Journal unlock; you can add more moments to an existing saved day at any time. Full Journal remains yours permanently and includes 12 months of account-verified Weather & Atlas. After that period, continuing the optional commercial weather and Atlas service is available through a monthly or annual subscription where the app offers it. Google Play handles Android purchases, restoration, cancellation, and refunds under its own policies. Cancelling Weather & Atlas stops future renewals and future paid-service access only—it never removes a memory, photo, recording, saved weather snapshot, pin, or export.

Apple App Store and Google Play are separate store entitlements today, so a purchase in one store does not automatically unlock the other. Today Was may keep limited account-bound, store-verified entitlement metadata to restore a benefit and authorize paid weather service, but it does not receive payment-card details or use that metadata to store your journal. A journal export and recovery key are still required to move your private content to another device.

Exports, deletion, and privacy

Settings lets you export the journal, permanently remove entries, revoke passkeys, remove an older encrypted cloud copy, sign out, or delete the account. Account deletion removes account and sign-in data and any Today Was entitlement metadata from Today Was infrastructure. It does not cancel a subscription or delete a purchase record held by Apple or Google; manage that through the relevant store. The encrypted local journal remains on the device until you delete the app or clear its website data.

Read the Privacy & security notice and Terms of use. For clear account deletion and device-local journal removal instructions, visit the account deletion page. Privacy and deletion questions can also be sent to hello@chargedalpha.com.