Please read section 13 carefully. It says that disputes between you and us are resolved by individual binding arbitration rather than in court, and that you give up the right to bring or join a class action. You can opt out of it within 30 days (section 13.7). Small-claims court is always available.
Terms of Service
Last updated: October 8, 2026 · Solous is in beta.
1. Who we are and what this is
Solous ("the Service") is a private life-journaling application, operated by its founder, an individual based in the State of Washington, USA ("Solous", "we", "us", "our"). Where these Terms say "we", that includes any company we form or transfer the Service to (section 15).
By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and our Consumer Health Data Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
The Service is in beta and currently free. Features may change, break, or be removed, and availability is not guaranteed. If we ever offer paid features, any additional terms for them will be shown to you before you pay.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 16 years old (or the minimum age of digital consent in your country, if higher) and legally able to enter this agreement in your jurisdiction. The Service is not directed to children.
You may not use the Service if you are on a U.S. government sanctions list or located in a country or region subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions, except as U.S. law permits.
3. Your account and your responsibilities
- You are responsible for safeguarding your login credentials, passkeys, authenticator devices, recovery codes, and, if you enable end-to-end encryption, your encryption passphrase and recovery key.
- Two-factor authentication is recommended, not required. If you choose not to set it up, your account is protected by your password alone, and you accept the greater risk that someone who learns your password can read your journal.
- Losing all of your authentication factors and recovery codes may make your account permanently inaccessible. For end-to-end-encrypted content this is strictly true and by design: we cannot recover it for you. Keep your recovery key safe and export regular backups.
- Notify us promptly at contact@solous.net of any unauthorized use of your account.
4. Not a crisis, medical, or professional service
Solous is a private journal. Nobody monitors what you write, so nobody can respond to it, and nothing you write will alert anyone, including in an emergency. The Service does not provide medical, mental-health, legal, or other professional advice, and it is not a substitute for care.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, contact local emergency services or a crisis line now. In the United States, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). Elsewhere, see findahelpline.com.
5. Acceptable use
You agree not to use the Service to:
- store or transmit content that is unlawful, or that infringes others' rights;
- store child sexual abuse material or content that facilitates serious harm to others;
- attempt to breach, probe, or disrupt the Service's security, or access accounts or data that are not yours;
- abuse, harass, or harm others, or send spam;
- create accounts by automated means, or resell or misrepresent the Service.
5.1 Misuse of the Service. You also agree not to:
- access the Service by automated means (bots, scrapers, scripts) other than the apps and browsers it is designed for;
- send requests at a volume or rate that degrades the Service for others, or upload data at a rate or volume far beyond personal journaling;
- get around a limit we set, such as your storage allowance, rate limits or a suspension, including by creating additional accounts;
- use the Service to send unsolicited messages, or to make us send email to people who did not ask for it;
- interfere with, overload or attack the Service, its infrastructure, or other users.
5.2 How we decide. Private journals are private: we do not monitor your content, and on an end-to-end-encrypted account we cannot see it. We act on misuse we can verify ourselves from records of activity, such as request and upload volumes and timestamps, never on the contents of your journal. We also act when the law requires us to, for example on valid legal process. We do not act on accusations we cannot verify; serious allegations about content are referred to the appropriate authorities.
5.3 What we may do. Depending on how serious the misuse is, we may warn you, temporarily limit what your account can do, or suspend it. When we suspend an account we keep a record of what we did, why, and the activity records it was based on, and we tell you by email. A suspended account can still read, export and delete everything in it; it cannot add or change content. Suspension is not deletion.
Automatic limits. These rules are applied automatically, by measuring activity only (imports from an export or another app are never counted). An account is suspended automatically if, within one hour, it uploads more than 300 files, uploads more than 2 GB, or creates more than 300 entries and replies. The first time, the suspension lasts 24 hours; a second time within 30 days, 7 days; a third time within 30 days, until it has been reviewed. Automatic suspensions end by themselves, and you are emailed when one starts and ends.
5.4 Appeals. If you think we got it wrong, reply to the suspension email or write to contact@solous.net. A person will review the decision and the records it was based on, and answer within 30 days.
6. Your content stays yours
You retain all rights to everything you write and upload. We claim no ownership of your content and take only the minimum, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license technically required to store it, back it up, and display it back to you, for as long as you keep it in the Service. We never mine, sell, advertise against, or train AI on your content, and we do not read it except in the narrow cases described in the Privacy Policy.
You are responsible for what you write, including what you write about other people, and you confirm you have the right to upload what you upload.
You can export your complete journal at any time. We strongly encourage regular exports as your own backup.
7. Privacy and sensitive information
How we handle your data is described in the Privacy Policy and the Consumer Health Data Policy. A journal may contain sensitive information, including about your health. We store it only with your explicit consent, given separately from these Terms, and only to keep it and show it back to you. We never share or sell it.
8. No warranty
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT DATA WILL NEVER BE LOST OR CORRUPTED.
9. Limitation of liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, GOODWILL, OR USE, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THESE TERMS OR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, INCLUDING DATA LOSS DUE TO SERVICE FAILURE, ACCOUNT LOCKOUT, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS, OR DISCONTINUATION, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), OR ANY OTHER THEORY, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS SHALL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE OR ONE HUNDRED US DOLLARS (USD $100).
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded by law, including liability for fraud, for gross negligence or willful misconduct, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or under non-waivable statutory rights (for consumers in the EU, UK and elsewhere). In those places these limits apply only to the fullest extent permitted.
10. Indemnification
To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from third-party claims and costs arising out of content you store in violation of these Terms or your unlawful use of the Service. This does not apply to the extent a claim results from our own wrongdoing.
11. Termination and service changes
You may delete your account at any time. To protect you, we confirm it's you first, switch the account off at once, and erase it permanently 30 days later unless you cancel from the link we email you; you can ask us to erase it sooner. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, or where the law requires it. We may also close an account for any other reason, but only after giving you at least 30 days' notice and the chance to export your journal. If we ever discontinue the Service, we will make reasonable efforts to give at least 30 days' notice so you can export your journal. Sections 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15 survive termination.
12. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, except that section 13 is governed by the U.S. Federal Arbitration Act. Subject to section 13, the state and federal courts located in the State of Washington have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer in a country whose mandatory law gives you the right to rely on its laws and courts, nothing here takes that right away.
13. Resolving disputes: arbitration and class-action waiver
13.1 Talk to us first. Before starting any claim, send a written notice describing it and the relief you want to contact@solous.net. We will do the same to the email on your account. Both sides agree to try in good faith to resolve it informally for 60 days. Statutes of limitation are paused during that period.
13.2 Arbitration. If it isn't resolved, you and we agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (adr.org), before a single arbitrator. The arbitrator decides all questions about the scope and enforceability of this section, except as stated in 13.5. Hearings take place by video or phone, or in person in the county where you live. Your filing fees will not exceed what a court would charge, and we pay the rest of the AAA's fees as its Consumer Rules require. If the AAA is unavailable or declines to administer the arbitration, you and we will agree on another arbitration provider (such as JAMS), or a court will appoint one.
13.3 Exceptions. Either of us may instead bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies, and either of us may ask a court for an injunction to stop unauthorized access to accounts or systems or infringement of intellectual property.
13.4 No class actions, no jury. You and we each give up the right to a jury trial and to bring or participate in any class, collective, consolidated, or representative action or arbitration. The arbitrator may award relief only to the individual party bringing the claim.
13.5 If part of this fails. If the class-action waiver in 13.4 is found unenforceable for a particular claim, that claim (and only that claim) will be decided in court under section 12, not in arbitration. Likewise, if a request for public injunctive relief cannot lawfully be limited to individual relief where you live, that request is severed and decided in court, after the rest of the dispute has been arbitrated. Any other part of this section found unenforceable is severed, and the rest remains.
13.6 Many similar claims. If 25 or more similar demands are filed by or with the help of the same law firm or organization, the AAA's Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules and fee schedule apply to them.
13.7 You can opt out. You may opt out of this section by emailing contact@solous.net from the email on your account, with the subject "Arbitration opt-out", within 30 days of first agreeing to a version of these Terms that contains it. Opting out does not affect anything else in these Terms; disputes then go to court under section 12.
13.8 Changes. If we change this section, you may reject the change by emailing us within 30 days, and the version you last agreed to will continue to apply to you.
13.9 Where this doesn't apply. This section does not apply to consumers in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or anywhere else where such agreements cannot be enforced against consumers.
14. Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms. The "Last updated" date shows the current version. For material changes we will ask you to agree again before you continue using the Service; until you do, you can still read, export, and delete your journal.
15. General
- Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and the Consumer Health Data Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
- Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.
- No waiver. Not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it.
- Assignment. You may not transfer these Terms. We may transfer them, with your data and on the same commitments, to a company we form to operate the Service or to a successor, and will tell you if we do.
- Events beyond our control. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
- Electronic notices. You agree that we may send notices to the email address on your account or show them in the Service.
16. Contact
Questions and legal notices: contact@solous.net.