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What happens to your journal when you die.

Whichever way you choose, choose.

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Every journal ends mid-sentence. The question is what happens to the sentences before it.

Cloud journals mostly answer this badly: the account outlives you as an unpaid subscription, then a deactivation, then a deletion on a schedule set by a company's data-retention policy. Your most private writing ends its existence as a compliance task.

A journal that exists as an encrypted file on your own devices gives you two honest options, and The Sealed Journal is built to make either deliberate. If you want the journal to pass on, it can: leave an encrypted export where your people will find it, and leave the passphrase with a will, a lawyer, or one trusted person. Whoever inherits it inherits it whole — readable, dated, in your voice, on their own machine, with no company mediating the handover.

If you want it to end with you, that is equally simple, and stronger than any deletion request: keep the passphrase to yourself. What remains is ciphertext, and ciphertext keeps a secret forever.

We'd only urge the deciding itself. A journal is one of the few true records of an inner life. Whichever way you choose, choose — don't leave it to a retention policy.

The Typewriter Experience

The cursor stays. The text moves.

In Write mode, your cursor remains exactly at the centre of the screen. The page rises up to meet it. Past words fade into soft shadow at the edges, leaving the present sentence in clear focus. Switch to Read mode and the entry flattens into an evenly lit document — the fade is for writing; the flat light is for returning.

Radical Privacy & Encryption

AES-256-GCM, in your browser, with a key only you derive.

  • ·PBKDF2 key derivation at 600,000 iterations — the OWASP 2024 recommendation. Existing journals upgrade transparently on first unlock.
  • ·No accounts, no telemetry, no analytics, no cookies, no third-party scripts.
  • ·IndexedDB storage with a localStorage fallback. Encrypted before it touches the disk.
  • ·The file is not minified. You can read the source. We'd rather you trust it than us.

What It Does Not Do

  • ✕No word counts chasing you across the screen.
  • ✕No formatting toolbar wrestling your thoughts into neatness.
  • ✕No cloud sync. No distant servers. Your words stay yours.
  • ✕No social sharing. Your vulnerability is not content.
  • ✕No AI assistant finishing your sentences.
  • ✕No streak counters. No guilt. No gamification.
  • ✕No subscriptions. No mood trackers. No noise.

Licensing & Gift Copy

One purchase covers up to three of your personal devices. It also includes a second untouched copy of the file — meant to be given to one person you trust. Lifetime updates. 30-day, no-questions refund. If you run a clinic, school, or workplace and want a copy for everyone, ask us about a site licence.

One Purchase. Yours Forever.

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Questions

How do I leave my journal to someone?

Store an encrypted export somewhere durable they'll find, and convey the passphrase through your estate arrangements — a will, a lawyer, or a sealed letter. The export plus the passphrase is the whole inheritance.

How do I make sure no one can ever read it?

Do nothing. Without the passphrase, the encrypted entries are permanently unreadable. There is no recovery path for heirs, companies, or anyone else.

Can my heirs open the journal without any software from you?

The journal is a self-contained file that runs in a browser — there is no server that must still exist and no account that must still work. It opens the way it always did.

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The cursor will be there when you return.

Centered. Blinking. Patient.

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