Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these Terms cover

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of TreeNotes, an end-to-end-encrypted note-taking and organization service ("the Service").

TreeNotes is operated by:

TreeNotes — operated by Joerg Lange
Kirchfeldstr. 39
40882 Ratingen, Germany
Email: contact@treenotes.com — or via the Contact page

The contracting party and person responsible for the Service is Joerg Lange. In these Terms, "we", "us", and "our" mean the operator of TreeNotes.

By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data.

2. The Service

TreeNotes lets you create, organize, and share notes and file attachments in a tree structure. Your content is encrypted on your device before it reaches our servers — we store only encrypted data and cannot read it.

We continuously develop the Service. We may add, change, or remove individual features; where a change materially reduces functionality you have paid for, Section 6 (cancellation) and your statutory rights apply.

3. Your account

• You must be at least 16 years old to use the Service.
• You must provide accurate registration information and keep your email address up to date, as it is our channel for important notices.
• You are responsible for keeping your password and credentials confidential. Please notify us of any unauthorized use of your account.
• There is no password reset. Because of the end-to-end encryption, we never have your password or keys and cannot restore access or content if you lose your credentials (see Section 7).

4. Your content

You retain all rights to your content. You grant us only the limited, non-exclusive right to store, transmit, and back up your encrypted data as necessary to provide the Service, including to those users you choose to share notes with. This right ends when you delete the content or your account, except for encrypted backups that expire automatically (see the Privacy Policy).

You are responsible for the content you store and share. Content shared publicly via a share link must not violate applicable law or the rights of others.

5. Acceptable use

You must not:

• use the Service to store or distribute unlawful content, or infringe others' rights;
• attempt to breach, probe, or circumvent security or access-control measures, or access other users' data;
• interfere with the operation of the Service, e.g. through malware, automated bulk requests, or deliberate overload;
• harass or harm others, including via shared or public notes;
• resell the Service or provide it to third parties as your own service.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules (Section 9).

6. Free plan, paid subscriptions, billing

Free plan. The free plan may be subject to limits (e.g. storage or number of notes) shown on the Pricing page.

Paid subscriptions. Paid plans are billed in advance, monthly or annually, at the prices shown at checkout (including applicable VAT). Payment is processed by our payment provider Stripe.

Renewal and cancellation. Subscriptions renew automatically for the same period unless cancelled. You can cancel at any time with effect from the end of the current billing period — in the app under Settings → Subscription, or by contacting us. After cancellation your account continues on the free plan; if your data exceeds the free plan's limits, your existing content remains readable and exportable, but you may not be able to add new content until you are within the limits.

Price changes. We will announce price changes to existing subscribers at least 30 days in advance by email or in the app. A price change applies to you only from your next renewal, and you can cancel before it takes effect.

7. Right of withdrawal for consumers (EU)

If you are a consumer in the EU, you have the following statutory right of withdrawal for paid subscriptions:

Instructions on withdrawal

Right of withdrawal. You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason. The withdrawal period is 14 days from the day the contract is concluded. To exercise the right, you must inform us (Joerg Lange (TreeNotes), Kirchfeldstr. 39, 40882 Ratingen, Germany; or via the Contact page) of your decision to withdraw by an unequivocal statement (e.g. an email). You may use the model withdrawal form below, but it is not obligatory. To meet the deadline, it is sufficient to send your notification before the period expires.

Effects of withdrawal. If you withdraw, we will reimburse all payments received from you without undue delay and at the latest within 14 days of receiving your notification, using the same means of payment you used, at no charge to you. If you asked us to begin the service during the withdrawal period, you owe us a proportionate amount for the service provided up to the time you informed us of your withdrawal, compared to the full scope of the contract.

Model withdrawal form (complete and return only if you wish to withdraw):
— To Joerg Lange (TreeNotes), Kirchfeldstr. 39, 40882 Ratingen, Germany, or via the Contact page:
— I/we hereby withdraw from the contract concluded by me/us for the provision of the following service: TreeNotes subscription
— Ordered on: / Name and address of the consumer: / Date, signature (only for paper form)

The subscription starts immediately after purchase. By purchasing, you request that we begin providing the service during the withdrawal period; if you later withdraw, the proportionate-payment rule above applies.

8. Availability, active development, and your backups

TreeNotes is under active development. We work hard to keep the Service stable and your data safe, but updates and infrastructure changes mean that interruptions, temporary unavailability, unexpected behaviour, or — in rare cases — loss of data cannot be ruled out. We do not guarantee any particular level of uptime.

Because of the end-to-end encryption, we cannot recover your content: we have no access to your decrypted data and there is no password reset.

Please do not rely on TreeNotes as the only place you keep information you cannot afford to lose. Export important notes regularly and keep an independent copy.

Your statutory warranty rights for digital services remain unaffected by this section.

9. Termination

By you: you can stop using the Service at any time and delete your account on the Delete Account page. Deletion is immediate and permanent; Section 6 governs any remaining paid period.

By us: we may terminate free accounts with at least 30 days' notice by email. We may suspend or terminate any account without notice for a serious violation of these Terms or where required by law; where reasonable, we will warn you first. Statutory termination rights for good cause remain unaffected.

If we discontinue the Service as a whole, we will give you at least 90 days' notice so you can export your data, and refund any prepaid fees for the period after shutdown.

10. Liability

We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body, or health, under the German Product Liability Act, and to the extent we have given a guarantee.

For slight negligence, we are liable only for breach of essential contractual obligations (obligations whose fulfilment makes proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose fulfilment you may regularly rely), and in that case limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of contract.

In all other respects, our liability is excluded. This does not change the burden of proof to your disadvantage and does not limit your statutory warranty rights. Please note Section 8: you are responsible for maintaining your own backups of important content.

11. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms where necessary — for example due to legal changes, new features, or changes to the Service. We will notify you of material changes at least 30 days before they take effect, by email or in the app. If you do not agree, you may cancel before the changes take effect; continued use after that date constitutes acceptance. Changes that would materially disturb the balance of the contract to your disadvantage will not be made without your express consent.

12. Final provisions

• Governing law: the law of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer, the mandatory consumer protection rules of your country of residence remain unaffected.
• Dispute resolution: we are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board (§ 36 VSBG).
• Severability: if a provision of these Terms is invalid, the remainder stays in force.

Questions about these Terms: Contact page.