Terms of Service

Your account

You must be at least 13 years old to use The Attic. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials secure. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.

Your recordings

You own the recordings, written responses, and content you create in The Attic. By using The Attic, you grant us a limited license to store, process, and deliver your content solely as instructed by you — including delivering recordings to recipients you designate on dates and conditions you set.

We will never use your recordings for advertising, AI training, or any purpose beyond operating the service for you.

Acceptable use — prohibited content and conduct

The Attic exists to preserve family stories. To keep it safe for everyone, you agree that you will not use The Attic to create, upload, store, share, or deliver any of the following:

• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or any content that sexualizes, exploits, or endangers a minor. We have zero tolerance. Such content is removed immediately, the account is terminated, and — as required by law — it is reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and/or law enforcement, along with associated account information.
• Content that is otherwise illegal, or that promotes, facilitates, or depicts illegal activity.
• Recordings of any person who has not consented to being recorded. Where you live may require the consent of everyone being recorded — that is your responsibility.
• Threats, harassment, stalking, bullying, or content intended to intimidate, alarm, or harm another person — including misuse of scheduled or legacy delivery to send unwanted or distressing messages to someone.
• Content that infringes someone else's copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
• Hateful content that attacks or dehumanizes people based on protected characteristics, or content that incites violence.
• Sexual content involving non-consenting adults, or intimate images shared without consent.
• Spam, bulk unsolicited messaging, malware, or attempts to defraud, impersonate, or deceive others.

You also agree not to use The Attic for any commercial purpose without our written consent; to access, alter, or delete another user's recordings or data; or to reverse-engineer or circumvent the app's security measures.

Content review and enforcement

Recordings are private by default, and we do not routinely monitor them. However, to keep The Attic lawful and safe, you agree that we may review content — including automated scanning and periodic spot checks — where we have a reason to (for example, a report, a legal obligation, a trust-and-safety signal, or investigating suspected prohibited use). If we find content that violates these Terms or the law, we may remove or disable access to it, hold or cancel a scheduled or legacy delivery, suspend or terminate the account, preserve relevant data, and report it to the appropriate authorities. Where safe and lawful to do so, we aim to act proportionately and, for non-egregious issues, to give notice.

Reporting abuse

If you encounter content in The Attic that you believe violates these Terms — or you were sent something you shouldn't have been — please report it in the app (open the recording and tap Report) or email abuse@intheattic.space. Reports involving a child's safety are treated as urgent. If someone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first.

Copyright and DMCA

We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe content in The Attic infringes your copyright, send a notice to our designated agent at dmca@intheattic.space including: your contact information, identification of the copyrighted work, identification of the allegedly infringing material and where it is, a statement of good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized, a statement that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act, and your signature. We will remove infringing content and terminate repeat infringers.

Subscriptions and payments

• The Attic offers a free plan (2 GB), Keepsake ($5.99/year, 15 GB), Together ($11.99/year, 35 GB shared), Family ($29.99/year, 100 GB shared), and Lifetime (a one-time payment of $299.99 for 60 GB). Founding members who redeem a founding-member code pay less, and keep that price for as long as their subscription continues. A subscription keeps the price it was bought at.
• Annual plans renew automatically. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the year you have already paid for — you keep everything you paid for until then.
• Plans bought on this website are processed by Stripe; we never see or store your card details. Cancel at any time from Account → Manage subscription on this website. If you are unhappy within 30 days of a website payment, write to us and we will refund it.
• Gifts are paid once and never renew. A gift that hasn't been opened yet can be refunded in full at any time — just write to us — or its code can be passed on to someone else in the family instead. Once a gift has been opened, the usual 30-day promise above applies from the day it was opened.
• Plans bought in the iPhone app are sold and billed by Apple, through your Apple Account, not by us. A yearly plan renews automatically unless you turn renewal off at least 24 hours before the end of the year. To cancel, open Settings on your iPhone, tap your name, then Subscriptions — deleting your Attic account does not stop Apple billing you. Refunds for App Store purchases are handled by Apple (reportaproblem.apple.com), under Apple's rules, and we can't issue them ourselves. Apple sets the price in each country, so the price in the app may differ from the prices on this website.
• Lifetime is a single payment, not a subscription. It does not renew and it does not lapse.
• Sharing a plan. Together is two adults sharing 35 GB; Family is up to six adults, plus children under 18 who join free, sharing 100 GB. The person who holds the plan invites the others and can remove them; anyone can leave. Everything each person records is theirs alone and stays theirs if they leave, are removed, or the plan ends — their account simply returns to its own plan. If they've recorded more than that plan holds, nothing is deleted; new recordings wait until there is room. When you invite someone as under 18 you are telling us they are; everyone on The Attic must still be at least 13.

If your subscription lapses

If a payment fails, here is exactly what happens and when:

• First 30 days. Nothing changes. We retry the payment quietly.
• After 30 days. Your account returns to the free plan. Every recording stays exactly where it is. If you are storing more than the free plan holds, your account becomes read-only: you can still watch, share, and download all of it — you simply cannot add new recordings until you are back under the limit or back on a plan. We will email you a link to download everything.
• After 90 days. Your recordings move to slower, cheaper storage. They stay available; playback may take a moment longer to begin. We email you again with a one-tap link to download everything at once.
• Then we hold them for 24 months from the day the subscription lapsed, provided we can reach somebody — you, a recovery address you gave us, or a trusted contact you named. If none of those work and your account email is undeliverable, we hold them for 12 months instead, because there is nobody left for us to tell.
• Before anything is ever deleted we will email you at 90 days, 30 days, and 7 days beforehand, and we will email your trusted contacts too. Every one of those emails contains a link to download everything and a button that keeps your account for another year at no cost, with no payment required. One click from you is enough.
• Recordings of a person who has died are never deleted for non-payment, regardless of anything above.

You can export everything you have stored at any time, on any plan, including the free one. That will always be true.

Legacy delivery and trusted contacts

The Attic's legacy delivery feature is designed to deliver recordings to your designated recipients after your passing. By using this feature:

• You authorize The Attic to send recordings to your designated recipients when the delivery conditions you set are met.
• You understand that The Attic relies on the check-in system and/or a report from one of your trusted contacts to determine when legacy delivery should occur. This is not a perfect system and should not be your only estate planning measure.
• You are responsible for keeping your trusted contact information current.

How we decide that someone has died

Releasing a living person's private recordings would be far worse than releasing them late, so every rule below is written to fail towards waiting.

The check-in system. We email you every 180 days to ask if you are still there. If you do not answer, we email again at 210 and 240 days. At 270 days — nine months of silence — we send one last email to every address we hold, and a person at The Attic reviews your account before anything is released. The check-in system never releases anything automatically. Answering any of these emails, opening the app, signing in or making a recording resets the clock completely, and cancels a review that has begun.

A trusted contact reporting a death. One of your trusted contacts — the people you named in the app, including the person you named when you signed up — can tell us you have died rather than waiting nine months. They do this by emailing us from the address you gave for them, with a death certificate, a published obituary or funeral-home notice, or a signed statement. Nobody else can make a report. When one is made:

• Before anything else, we email you, at every address we hold, telling you that a report has been made — within a day of it being opened. A single click from you cancels it and blocks that person from reporting again.
• We then wait before anything can be released, and how long depends on what they can show us: 14 days with a death certificate, 30 days with a published obituary or funeral-home notice, and 90 days with a signed statement alone, plus any extra time you have chosen.
• A signed statement is the weakest evidence, so if you have named two or more trusted contacts, a second, different trusted contact must also confirm the death, from their own address, before anything can be released. If you named only one, the 90-day wait applies on its own. A death certificate or obituary needs only the one report.
• Any sign of life during that window — signing in, opening the app, answering one of our emails, making a recording — cancels the report at once, blocks everyone who made or confirmed it from reporting again, and we tell you it happened.
• A person at The Attic reviews every release before it is sent. No account is ever released automatically on someone else's say-so.
• Knowingly making a false report is a violation of these Terms and may be unlawful.

You can change these defaults in the app, under Account: you may accept only a death certificate, add one or three months to every waiting period, or turn trusted-contact reporting off entirely and rely on the check-in system alone.

Who receives. When a release is approved, each of your trusted contacts receives the recordings you left to them, and is asked to sign in with the address you gave before they can open anything.

We confirm only that delivery should happen. We do not verify anyone's legal entitlement to an estate, and The Attic is not an executor. Legacy delivery is a keepsake being passed on, not a transfer of property.

Service availability and data protection

We work hard to keep The Attic reliable and your recordings safe. However:

• We do not guarantee 100% uptime or that the service will be available without interruption.
• In the unlikely event that we need to shut down The Attic, we will give you at least 90 days' notice by email, with a link to a full export so you can download your recordings before closure. We will send the same notice and export link to the next of kin and trusted contacts you have named, so that your recordings can still reach your family if you do not see our email.
• We are not liable for data loss resulting from circumstances beyond our reasonable control (e.g., hardware failure, natural disaster), though we maintain redundant backups to minimize this risk.

Force majeure

The Attic is not liable for any failure or delay in performing its obligations, including storing or delivering your recordings, to the extent caused by events beyond our reasonable control. These include, without limitation: natural disasters, fire, flood, or severe weather; war, terrorism, or civil unrest; labor disputes; power, internet, or telecommunications failures; failures or outages of third-party infrastructure providers (such as Supabase, Cloudflare, Stripe, or Resend); government actions, embargoes, or changes in law; pandemics or public-health emergencies; and cyberattacks. If such an event prevents a scheduled or legacy delivery, we will make reasonable efforts to complete the delivery once the event has passed.

Disclaimer of warranties

The Attic is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that recordings will be delivered at an exact moment, though we work hard to make all three true.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, The Attic's liability for any claim arising from these Terms or use of the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, including loss of data, loss of recordings, or emotional distress, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold The Attic harmless from any claims, damages, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from content you upload, your violation of these Terms, or your infringement of another person's rights — including the rights of anyone you record without their consent.

Account termination

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms. You may delete your account at any time from Account settings in the app. Upon deletion, your recordings and data are permanently removed.

Changes to these Terms

If we make material changes to these Terms, we'll notify you by email and update the date above. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

Dispute resolution

If a dispute arises, we ask that you first contact us at hello@intheattic.space so we can try to resolve it informally. If we cannot, any dispute arising out of these Terms or your use of The Attic will be resolved through binding individual arbitration rather than in court, except that either party may bring a claim in small-claims court. To the extent permitted by law, you and The Attic waive any right to a jury trial and to participate in a class action. Nothing in this section limits any non-waivable rights you have under the laws of your jurisdiction.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict of law principles.

Severability and entire agreement

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in full effect. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and The Attic regarding the service and supersede any prior agreements. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets; you may not assign them without our consent. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.

Contact

Questions: hello@intheattic.space