What you can share

• Your own words: a quote you wrote, or an excerpt of a diary entry you choose to make public.
• Reflections that could help or comfort someone reading on a hard day.
• A post is its text. A day shared into a public diary also shows its date and, if you choose, its emoji, colour, weather and prompt question. Mood, tags, places, photos, audio, sketches and the rest of your diary always stay private.
• Posts in the languages the community is open to. The app tells you when yours is not open yet.

Public profiles and diaries

• A public profile is optional. It has a name, an avatar chosen from a set of icons and colours, and a short bio if you want one. There are no photos and no unique usernames.
• Names, bios, diary titles and descriptions are reviewed like posts, and so is every change to them. Until a change is approved, the public version stays as it was.
• A public diary is a separate shelf, not a window onto your diary. It holds only the days you share into it one by one, each reviewed first. Nothing is ever published automatically.
• Days shared as your profile show your day-card style. Anonymous and pen-name posts always use the default card, so the style can't point to you.

What we don't publish

• Personal information about you or anyone else: contact details, addresses, other people's names or anything else that could identify a person. The name on your public profile is yours to choose.
• Words that are not yours, such as song lyrics, poems or lines from books, even with a credit.
• Hate, harassment, threats, sexual content or anything meant to hurt or shock.
• Pretending to be someone else, such as a real person, a brand or another member, through a name, bio, avatar or diary.
• Advertising, links, handles, hashtags or repeated posts.
• Posts unrelated to reflection, writing or wellbeing.

Difficult topics

Hopeful stories of recovery are welcome, after a careful human review. We don't publish anything that describes a crisis happening now, an intent to hurt yourself or others, or methods or instructions for self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, addiction or abuse. When a post can't be published for this reason, you see the reason "Touches on a topic we can't publish here".

The community is not a place to ask for help, and nobody watches it in real time. If you are going through something hard right now, free and confidential helplines are listed at findahelpline.com. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.

Who can post

• You need an account signed in with Google, Apple or an email address you have verified.
• You must be 16 or older and accept these guidelines before you post or create a profile or public diary. For days shared into a public diary you accept once for each version of the guidelines. If they change in an important way, we ask you to accept them again.
• You can post under a pen name, anonymously or as your public profile. Anonymous posts by the same person can be linked to each other, never to your account or your profile.

How review works

• Every post waits for review and appears only after a person approves it.
• If a post is not approved, or is removed later, you see the reason in My posts.
• Readers can report a post, a profile or a public diary. Anything reported by two people is hidden until we review it again; a hidden profile or diary shows a neutral placeholder. We aim to decide within 24 hours of a report.
• If you think we got it wrong, you can ask for a second look through the feedback form in the app.

You stay in control

• You can withdraw a post at any time. Its text is deleted and it leaves the community straight away.
• You can make a public diary private again at any time. The days shared into it are withdrawn and the public diary is deleted. Your own diary doesn't change.
• You can delete your public profile at any time. Its public diaries become private, posts shared as the profile are withdrawn and, if you choose, your anonymous and pen-name posts too.
• Deleting your account deletes your posts, your public profile and diaries, their public copies and your author record.
• You keep the rights to your words. By posting, you let us show your post in the app and on our websites until you withdraw it or delete your account.
• If you use end-to-end encryption, your diary stays encrypted. The text you post is a separate public copy that is not encrypted.

When the guidelines are broken

Posts, profiles and diaries that break these guidelines are not published, or are removed. Repeated offensive, spam, copied or impersonating content leads to a 30-day pause from posting, and after that to a permanent one. We lift a pause if we made a mistake.

Contact

To report your words used without permission or a profile pretending to be you, question a decision or report abuse, write to contactjournalpersonaldiary.com. Please include the text of the post or the name of the profile.