Last updated July 21, 2026
Heirloom ("we," "us") is a private family journal that lets you write, share stories with family, and leave letters to be delivered to the people you love. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the controls you have — including how to download or delete everything we hold about you, both available anytime from Settings.
Account information — your name, email address, password (stored as a one-way bcrypt hash, never in plain text), and optionally your birth year, a short bio, and a profile photo.
Content you create— journal entries, comments, likes, your family tree (who you're related to and how), and "Branches" (shared family story threads) and the fragments you or others add to them.
Legacy letters and recipients— when you write a letter to be delivered on a future date, we store the recipient's name and email address (whether or not they have a Heirloom account) so we can deliver it.
Trusted contacts — the name and email of anyone you name as a legacy contact, so we can send them their activation link.
Payment information— handled entirely by our payment processor, Stripe. Heirloom never sees or stores your card details; we only store your subscription status and Stripe's internal customer/subscription identifiers.
Technical information — your session cookie (to keep you signed in) and, briefly, your IP address, used only to prevent abuse (for example, limiting repeated failed login attempts).
Analytics — we use Google Analytics to understand aggregate usage patterns across the app.
A letter you mark as legacy is held privately and delivered automatically on the date you choose — to a specific family member, to everyone in your family tree, or to a custom recipient you name. Delivery happens by email, but the email itself never contains the letter's content — only a private link. The recipient does not need a Heirloom account to read it.
We don't sell your information. We share it only with the service providers that make Heirloom work:
We keep your information for as long as your account is active. You can download a full copy of your data or permanently delete your account at any time from Settings — deletion removes your entries, comments, family connections, and legacy letters immediately.
You can access, export, correct, or delete your information at any time. Data export and account deletion are self-service in Settings; profile corrections (name, bio) can be made from your account. If you need help with any of this, contact us at the email below.
Passwords are hashed with bcrypt and never stored in plain text. All traffic to Heirloom is encrypted (HTTPS). No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, but we use industry-standard safeguards throughout.
Heirloom is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.
If we make material changes, we'll update the date at the top of this page.
Questions about this policy or your data: support@heirloomjournal.com.