Terms of use

Last updated 9 October 2026

1. Who these terms are for

Handwritten Journal (the "app") is made by Matt Vorst ("we", "us"). It is designed for children of roughly five to eight, used under the supervision of a parent, guardian or teacher (a "grown-up"). By installing or using the app, or by letting a child use it, the grown-up agrees to these terms on their own behalf and on behalf of the child. A child should not agree to these terms alone.

These terms also cover this website.

2. The App Store and Apple's license

The app is distributed through Apple's App Store. Your use of it is also governed by Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement, including its rules on the devices you may install it on. Where these terms and Apple's agreement differ on a matter that agreement covers, Apple's agreement governs. Apple is not responsible for the app, for these terms, or for providing support for the app.

3. Your license to use the app

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install and use the app on Apple devices you own or control, or, for schools, on devices managed through Apple School Manager, in accordance with Apple's usage rules. The journal is for iPads running iPadOS 18 or later and is designed for Apple Pencil; on an iPhone the app is the grown-up's side of sharing. You may not copy, modify, sell, rent, reverse-engineer or redistribute the app, or attempt to get around any protection Apple or the app applies.

4. Your journal is yours

Everything a child says, types or writes in the app belongs to the child and their family. The journal is stored only on your iPad; we claim no rights in it. Because the app keeps no copy of the journal anywhere else, you are responsible for any backups you want — the app can export any page, or the whole journal, as a PDF at any time. The app has no advertising, analytics, or crash reporting, as described in the privacy policy.

When a grown-up sends a page or a note, you let us store it and pass it on to the people it is for, only to provide sharing, and only for as long as the privacy policy says. That permission ends when the page or note is deleted.

5. Grown-up accounts and sharing

Sharing needs a grown-up's account: Sign in with Apple or an email address, and an age check that says you are 18 or older: Apple's on iOS 26 or later, and before that the year you were born, which the app asks and does not keep. You must be the child's parent or legal guardian, or have their permission, to set up sharing for a child. Keep your sign-in, and the grown-up PIN you choose, to yourself; you are responsible for what is sent with them. Children do not sign in and must not be given a grown-up's account.

Invite only families you know. If you send one of your child's pages with an invitation, anyone who opens its link can see that page until the invitation is answered or runs out, so give the link only to the family it is for. Each note is approved by a grown-up in both families before a child sees it: approve only what you are comfortable with, and report a note that should not have been sent. We may review a reported note, and may suspend or end a family's sharing — without affecting the journals on its iPads — if sharing is used to harm, harass or deceive, or in breach of these terms.

6. Free, and paid features

The basic app is always free, because we want children to thrive — and so are pages a child sends to their own grown-up. We will never sell your data, so some additional features are paid.

Send to friends is an auto-renewable subscription, sold and billed by Apple through the App Store at the price shown before you buy. It renews each month until you cancel it in your Apple Account settings at least 24 hours before it renews; Apple's payment and refund rules apply. There is no free trial: the first payment is also the parent check the law asks for. It can be shared through Family Sharing. Only the family that invites pays; an invited family replies free within that friendship. If the subscription ends, friendships pause and nothing is deleted; they pick up again if it is renewed.

Any page a child has already written remains readable and exportable without a purchase.

7. What the app is, and is not

The app is a journal with handwriting practice built in. It marks ink and judges stroke order against ordinary print letter formations, and it gives scores, stars and badges to encourage a child. Those scores are a difficulty setting chosen by a grown-up, not a measure of a child against any standard. The app is not a curriculum, a reading program, an assessment, a diagnosis or a therapy, and it is not a substitute for a teacher, an occupational therapist or a doctor. Speech recognition and letter judgment are imperfect; the app is built so a misheard word can be fixed and a misjudged letter costs little, but it will sometimes be wrong.

8. Acceptable use

Use the app and this website only as intended and only in ways that are lawful. Do not try to interfere with the website, misrepresent your relationship with us, or use our name or materials in a way that suggests we endorse something we do not.

9. Intellectual property

The app, its name, icon, design, text and images are ours and are protected by copyright and trademark law. You may share screenshots of the app and quote this website for reviews, news, teaching and personal use, with attribution. The typefaces bundled in the app — Jua, Andika, Varela Round, Comic Neue and Playwrite US Trad — are licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 by their respective designers. Apple, iPad, Apple Pencil and App Store are trademarks of Apple Inc.

10. Changes and availability

We may update the app, change or remove features, or stop distributing it. The journal works entirely on your iPad, so a version you have installed keeps working without us. Sharing depends on our service: it may be interrupted, and if we ever stop it we will say so in the app and on this website, give you time to save what you have been sent, and end any subscription. We are not obliged to provide updates or support, though we try to answer every message.

11. No warranty

The app and this website are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law — including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We do not promise that the app will be error-free, that speech will always be recognized correctly, or that a letter will always be judged fairly.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, arising out of or related to the app or this website. Our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid for the app in the twelve months before the claim arose. Some jurisdictions do not allow some of these limitations, in which case they apply only to the extent permitted.

13. Ending the license

You may stop using the app at any time by deleting it; your journal goes with it, so export first if you want to keep it. You may stop sharing at any time with Stop sharing and leave, or delete your grown-up account, in the app's Settings; cancel a subscription in your Apple Account. We may end your license, or your family's sharing, if you breach these terms. Sections 4, 9, 11 and 12 survive.

14. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Ohio, except where the law where you live gives you rights that cannot be waived.

15. Changes to these terms

If these terms change, the new version will be posted here with the date at the top, and the app will ask a grown-up to agree again. Continuing to use the website after a change means you accept the new terms.

16. Contact

Questions about these terms: hello@handwrittenjournal.app.