Jurnl — app privacy notice

Who we are.

Jurnl is made by But When Ltd, which is responsible for your personal information in the app. “Jurnl”, “we” and “us” mean But When Ltd. But When Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 16950733, with its registered office at 9 Hassendean Road, London, England, SE3 8TR.

You can reach us at hello@jurnl.co, or through Settings → Write to us in the app.

In short.

Your journal is kept on your device and in your own private iCloud. There’s no Jurnl account, and we don’t keep your journal or a personal history of you.
AI sharing is off until you choose to allow it. When it’s on, the app sends the writing a question or reflection needs — which can include relevant passages from earlier pages that it selects — to our service on Cloudflare, which asks OpenAI to write it. Each request stands alone, and your writing isn’t used to train AI.
You can turn AI sharing off at any time in Settings → AI sharing. Without it, you can keep writing with Jurnl’s built-in questions.
Photos aren’t sent for AI processing.
Apple handles purchases. Our service receives nothing about them.
If you email us, we receive your message and your address.

Where your journal is kept.

Your entries, the pages you leave open, your photos and the notes and reflections Jurnl writes are saved on your device and synced through Apple’s iCloud to your own private iCloud database. Apple stores and runs iCloud under your agreement with Apple. We can’t open your private iCloud database. If you’re not signed in to iCloud, your journal stays on the device.

Unfinished pages. A page you leave open is saved the same way until you close the book on it or tear it up. It isn’t sent for a reflection while it’s unfinished. If AI sharing is on and you ask for a follow-up question while writing, that page’s writing so far is sent so the question can follow from it.

Photos. Jurnl uses the system photo picker, so it receives only the photos you choose. It keeps its own copy, redrawn from the picture without embedded details such as location or camera information. Photos sync with your journal through iCloud and are included in backups you make. They aren’t sent for AI processing.

Backups you make. Settings → Back up & restore saves a copy of the journal currently on this device as one file, whatever your plan: entries, unfinished pages, photos and the reflections Jurnl wrote. You choose where the file goes, and Jurnl tries to read the saved file back to check it. It tells you if something could not be included or the saved file could not be checked. The file is unencrypted and the journal lock doesn’t cover it, so anyone who has it can read your journal.

Before a restore changes anything, Jurnl shows you what the backup holds and asks you to confirm. Restoring replaces everything in your journal, on every device that uses your iCloud account; it doesn’t combine the two, and other devices follow as iCloud syncs, which isn’t instant. While a restore runs and is checked, Jurnl keeps a temporary copy of your journal on this device, and normally removes it afterwards. If a restore is interrupted, Jurnl tries to put your journal back from that copy; if the copy is missing or can’t be confirmed, Jurnl tells you, and may pause changes until it’s settled. Restoring sends nothing for AI.

Device backups. Some settings, such as reminder times and which introductions you’ve seen, live on the device and may be included in its own backups. Your AI-sharing choice is not included: each installation of the app asks for it.

AI sharing: what’s sent, and when.

Nothing in this section happens unless AI sharing is on for that installation of the app, and the feature is available under your plan.

When you close the book on a pageThat page’s words in full; when relevant, up to two recent short passages and one older one from earlier pages; and a few recurring theme words and recent mood words.
When you close a page written in several partsAll of its parts, each beside the question or note it answered, with the same few earlier passages a single page may use.
When you ask for a follow-up question while writingThat page’s writing so far, each part beside the question it answered. Nothing is sent until you ask.
When a Guided question is prepared for an established journalYour arrival word and a broad part of your local day, such as “evening”; recurring theme words and mood words; Jurnl’s own recent questions, so it doesn’t repeat them; and your latest page’s words, if you wrote it earlier today or yesterday. New journals, and installations with AI sharing off, use questions built into the app.
For a note about a longer stretchThis covers the recent weeks, a closed season, a chapter, or what has stayed with you over a long time: a few short passages from that stretch, or from different parts of your journal for the long view. At most 8 passages at once, each a sentence or short span.
When a page answered a Guided question or one of Jurnl’s notesThat question or note can travel beside your words in reply, within the same limits.
When you open the app and your newest page is from the past weekThat page may be sent again to refresh the short line on Home.
When you open an earlier page whose reflection was written in an older styleThat page may be sent again, once, to refresh it.
When you ask for a missing note on an earlier pageThat page, once.

Automatic refreshes and your choice. The two automatic refreshes above apply only to pages already eligible for them under your choice and your plan. Turning AI sharing on doesn’t by itself send pages you closed while it was off, or requests left waiting from before. Asking for a missing note is a separate request that you make.

Earlier writing in a request. The app chooses on your device which earlier passages are relevant; you don’t need to pick them. They’re sent without dates or page identifiers. A later request can include earlier writing again — it comes from your journal, not from a history we keep.

Sending is attempted, not guaranteed. A request may not be sent, or may fail — for example offline, or when your plan doesn’t include it. Not every page gets a reflection: one is written only when a grounded reflection can be made from what you wrote.

What we add, and what we don’t. We don’t put your name, an account, a device identifier, or your pages’ dates or identities into these requests. Your own words can still identify you, and can include personal or sensitive information about you or about other people — so we don’t call these requests anonymous. Like any internet request, each one reaches our service on Cloudflare with your device’s network (IP) address.

Not sent for AI: photos; the name you gave in Settings; anything about your purchases; and pages you haven’t finished, unless you ask for a follow-up.

Who handles it. Our reflection service runs on Cloudflare. It passes each request to OpenAI, whose model writes the question or reflection, and returns the result to your device. If we change or add an AI company, we’ll update this notice first, and the app will ask for your choice again before sending anything to it.

How long it’s kept.

Our service keeps no journal writing, transcripts, or copies of requests or answers. If a request to the AI company fails, it may record which kind of request it was, which company it went to and the error code, with none of your writing.
Cloudflare processes each request’s technical details, such as your IP address, to deliver it and protect the service, as its privacy policy explains.
OpenAI. Your writing isn’t used to train AI models. OpenAI may keep requests and answers for up to 30 days to check for misuse, or longer where the law requires it or to protect people or services. For some models, short-lived processing data may be held for up to 24 hours.

Turning it off. Settings → AI sharing → Turn off AI sharing stops new requests from that moment. Requests already sent can’t be called back, and answers that arrive after you turn it off aren’t shown. Turning it back on doesn’t send a backlog of pages. New questions and reflections can still include short passages of eligible earlier writing, as described above, including writing from while sharing was off.

With AI sharing off you can still write and use Jurnl’s built-in questions, read back your pages and existing notes, add photos and make backups, as your plan allows. New AI questions and reflections aren’t available, and your plan and billing don’t change.

Without a connection. Your words are saved on the device without a network. A reflection that couldn’t be sent may wait on the device and be sent later, while AI sharing stays on.

Plans and AI.

Free first page. Without a subscription, your first page is free. With AI sharing on, that page can use a limited amount of AI help: up to three follow-up question requests, and one reflection for that page, where one can be grounded in what you wrote. A request that may have reached our service counts even if no question comes back, so this isn’t a promise of three questions. A confirmed eligibility refusal before AI dispatch does not use a request; an uncertain connection failure is not proof of refusal. With AI sharing on, Jurnl can request it when you close the page. If AI sharing is on and the page offers “Ask for this page’s note” while you’re using the free first page, you can ask for that same reflection later from the page. Its opening Guided questions come from the app itself. If you subscribe later, that page can join later reflections like your other pages.

Subscribed. Pages written under your subscription can use the AI features above.

When access can’t be confirmed. If Jurnl can’t confirm your subscription when you close a page, that page’s reflection waits on the device. It is sent only once your subscription is confirmed for the time you closed it. New AI help always waits until your subscription can be checked, even when you can keep writing offline.

If your subscription ends. A page you’d already started may be closed once, as it is, and no reflection is requested for it. Jurnl requests no new questions or reflections until you subscribe again.

Purchases.

Apple handles purchases, trials, renewals, cancellations and refunds, under Apple’s terms. We never see your payment details.
Jurnl checks your subscription with Apple on your device. Nothing about purchases is sent to our service or included in AI requests.
Your device keeps a small record of purchases Apple has confirmed to it — transaction number, plan and dates. It stays on the device, isn’t synced, and is excluded from device backups.
Your journal keeps a few content-free markers in your private iCloud so your devices agree about your pages — for example, which page was your free first page, or that a page was closed once after a subscription ended.

Reminders, the lock and ratings.

Reminders are local notifications scheduled on your device. They never quote your writing.

The journal lock uses your device’s own Face ID, Touch ID or passcode check. Jurnl learns only whether it succeeded.

Ratings. Now and then, Jurnl may ask Apple to show its rating prompt. Apple decides whether it appears, and any rating or review goes to Apple, not to us. Jurnl keeps only a note on your device of when it last asked.

If you write to us.

If you email hello@jurnl.co, we receive your address, your message and any attachments. Settings → Write to us opens your mail app with only our address and the subject “Jurnl support”. Your email is held in our Zoho Mail mailbox in its EU data centre, and we use it to reply and to resolve what you ask.

Please don’t send your journal; we never need it. For a purchase question we may ask for your App Store order ID, and nothing else from the receipt.

We normally delete support emails from our working mailbox 12 months after the conversation ends.

We may keep relevant correspondence longer where necessary to resolve a dispute, establish or defend legal claims, or meet a legal obligation. After we delete an email, copies can stay in our email provider’s recovery or backup systems for a limited period, under its own deletion schedule, before they’re permanently removed. We don’t use those copies as an archive.

This inbox isn’t a crisis service. Settings → Support resources lists services that can help now.

What the app doesn’t include.

The app contains no advertising, analytics or crash-reporting services, and doesn’t use Apple’s advertising identifier. We don’t sell personal information or share it for advertising.

Copies, removal and who processes your information.

Settings → Back up & restore saves a complete copy of your journal, whatever your plan. You can tear up an open page and remove photos. Finished entries can’t be edited or deleted one at a time; that’s part of how Jurnl works.

Deleting the app doesn’t by itself delete your journal from iCloud, or any backup files you saved. Write to us and we’ll explain how to remove your Jurnl data from iCloud.

Who processes your information. We have no server copy of your journal. Cloudflare, OpenAI and Zoho process the information described above for us, under their service and data-processing terms, and we remain responsible for the processing we instruct. Cloudflare also describes some processing it carries out for its own purposes, such as security, in its privacy policy; not every technical record is processed solely on our instructions.

Your choices and rights.

Your choice about AI sharing. AI sharing is optional. We send your writing to our AI service only if you’ve chosen to allow AI sharing. Your writing may include health or other sensitive information. You can turn AI sharing off at any time in Settings → AI sharing; this stops new requests, and requests already sent can’t be called back. We use support emails to answer you, and process technical request details to keep our service working and secure, because we have a legitimate interest in doing so.

People you mention. Your writing may mention other people, sometimes including sensitive details about them. When AI sharing is on, what you write about them is processed only within your own requests, to produce your questions and reflections. We don’t keep a copy or a profile of them on our service, or use it to train AI. Anyone who thinks they’ve been written about can contact us; we hold no journal, so there’s usually nothing of theirs for us to find.

Where it’s processed. OpenAI and Cloudflare may process requests outside the UK and the European Economic Area. Where the law requires safeguards for these transfers, we rely on the providers’ data-processing terms, including standard contractual clauses with the UK Addendum. Our Zoho mailbox is hosted in the EU; Zoho describes occasional support access from outside the EU under contractual safeguards.

Your rights. You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, to correct or delete it, to restrict or object to our use of it, or for a portable copy where that applies. Depending on where you live, the law may give you these and other rights. AI requests carry no account or identifier, so we usually can’t locate a single request held by our AI company; it’s deleted on the schedule above. Your journal itself is in your control on your devices and in your iCloud.

To use these rights, write to hello@jurnl.co. We normally respond within one month. If we need longer, as the law allows, we’ll explain why. If you’re unhappy, you can complain to a data protection authority — in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk), or elsewhere, the authority where you live.

Younger writers.

Jurnl is intended for adults and teenagers aged 13 and over. Support for younger writers is planned for later.

Where Jurnl is offered.

Jurnl is offered in English through the App Store. Its AI features can be offered only in places our AI provider supports, so they may not be available everywhere the App Store is. Like any internet request, each AI request reaches our service on Cloudflare with your device’s network (IP) address, as section 04 explains.

Changes.

We’ll update this notice before any change to what’s sent or who receives it, and the app will ask for your choice again where that change affects AI sharing.

Back to Jurnl Terms of Use

Your journal, and your privacy.