This document covers Vaulternal's utility services ("Tools"), including the Time Capsule letter-to-future-self tool. Each Tool may have its own addendum. Where an addendum and these umbrella Terms conflict, the addendum controls only on the points it explicitly addresses.
1. Definitions
- "Vaulternal", "we", "us", "our" — Vaulternal, Inc., a [To be confirmed by legal counsel: state of incorporation] corporation.
- "Tool" — any free or paid utility service we offer under the
vaulternal.com/tools/namespace, including any tool-branded subdomain (e.g. Time Capsule). - "User", "you", "your" — the natural person who submits content, schedules delivery, or otherwise interacts with a Tool.
- "Content" — any text, metadata, or other material you submit through a Tool.
- "Confirmed Email" — for delivery-oriented Tools, the email address you confirmed by clicking a confirmation link sent to that address.
2. Eligibility
You must be 18 years of age or older to use any Vaulternal Tool. By submitting Content or otherwise interacting with a Tool, you affirm that you meet this age requirement. We are not knowingly directed at, and do not knowingly collect Content from, any person under 18.
3. Best-effort service
Vaulternal Tools are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis for free tiers. We will use reasonable engineering and operational endeavours to keep Tools running, deliver scheduled artifacts, and protect your data, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability or successful long-horizon delivery. For Tools with multi-year delivery (e.g. Time Capsule's 50-year horizon), "best effort" is the operative standard. A Tool addendum may state different service levels for paid tiers.
4. Acceptable use
You agree not to use any Vaulternal Tool to:
- defame, harass, threaten, stalk, intimidate, or violate the legal rights (including privacy and publicity rights) of any person;
- store, transmit, or schedule content that is illegal, infringing, or that you have no lawful right to distribute;
- impersonate any person, organisation, or affiliation, or misrepresent your identity;
- distribute malware, phishing content, or any code intended to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorised access to any system;
- send junk mail, chain mail, or unsolicited bulk communication of any kind;
- attempt to circumvent the Tool's rate limits, age affirmation, suppression list, or other security or anti-abuse measures;
- automate, scrape, mirror, reverse-engineer, or extract Content or service data beyond what individual end-user usage requires;
- use the Tool to test, develop, or train any artificial-intelligence model.
We may, in our reasonable discretion, suspend or remove any Content, cancel any scheduled delivery, or terminate access to a Tool, with or without prior notice, where we determine that this section has been or is likely to be violated.
5. User responsibility and indemnification
You are solely responsible for the Content you create, submit, or schedule through any Vaulternal Tool. You retain ownership of your Content. You grant Vaulternal a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, encrypt, transmit, and deliver your Content for the sole purpose of operating the Tool you used. This licence ends when your Content is deleted in accordance with the retention schedule in the Tools Privacy Policy.
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Vaulternal and its officers, employees, and agents from and against any claim, demand, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to (a) your Content, (b) your breach of these Terms, or (c) your violation of any law or third-party right.
6. Intellectual-property infringement (DMCA notice and takedown)
If you believe that Content delivered through a Vaulternal Tool infringes your copyright, you may submit a notice under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) to:
DMCA Designated Agent Vaulternal, Inc. [To be confirmed by legal counsel: physical mailing address] Email: dmca@vaulternal.com
A valid notice must include: (i) a physical or electronic signature of the person authorised to act for the rights-holder; (ii) identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed; (iii) identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate it; (iv) your contact information; (v) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised; and (vi) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and you are authorised to act. Counter-notices may be submitted under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g) to the same address.
Repeat infringers will have their access to the Tools terminated.
7. Liability cap
For free tiers, Vaulternal's aggregate liability for any Tool is limited to zero monetary damages — these Tools are provided as a gift and no fee is charged. For paid tiers, our aggregate liability is limited to the amounts you paid Vaulternal for the Tool in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim. Each Tool addendum confirms its tier.
8. Disclaimer of warranties
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Vaulternal Tools are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including without limitation any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or uninterrupted, error-free, or secure operation. Vaulternal does not warrant that any Tool will deliver scheduled Content on any specific date, will preserve Content for any specific duration, or will be free of bugs, defects, or downtime. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you.
9. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event will Vaulternal, its affiliates, or its officers, employees, or agents be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including without limitation damages for lost profits, lost data, lost Content, business interruption, or substitute services, arising out of or in connection with these Terms or your use of a Tool, whether based on contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability, or any other legal theory, and whether or not Vaulternal has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
10. Force majeure
Vaulternal will not be liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, natural disasters, war, terrorism, civil unrest, government action, public-health emergencies, labour disputes, internet or third-party service outages, sustained denial-of-service attacks, or sustained failures of upstream telecommunication providers.
11. Privacy
Your use of a Vaulternal Tool is subject to our Tools Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.
12. Changes to terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the bottom of this page reflects the most recent change. Material changes — those that reduce your rights or expand our discretion — will be announced on the Tool's landing page and, where the Tool retains a Confirmed Email for an active scheduled artifact, by email to that address at least thirty (30) days before they take effect. Your continued use of the Tool after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
13. Tool sunset / discontinuation
If a Vaulternal Tool is discontinued, we will, where practicable, do one of the following with at least ninety (90) days' written notice to the Confirmed Email of every active scheduled artifact:
- attempt mass delivery of any pending letters or queued artifacts before the discontinuation date; or
- provide a self-export mechanism so users can retrieve their Content within the same notice period.
We do not guarantee successful completion in either case — sunset is a best-effort process.
14. Dispute resolution and arbitration (United States residents)
If you reside in the United States, you and Vaulternal agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of a Tool will be resolved exclusively through binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, and not in court, except that either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court. You and Vaulternal waive the right to a trial by jury and the right to participate in a class action, class arbitration, or representative action. This section does not apply to claims for injunctive relief regarding intellectual property or unauthorised access. The arbitration will be conducted in the English language and seated in [To be confirmed by legal counsel: arbitration seat]. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing legal@vaulternal.com within thirty (30) days of first using the Tool, with the subject line "Arbitration Opt-Out."
15. Governing law and venue
These Terms are governed by the laws of [To be confirmed by legal counsel: governing-law jurisdiction], without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Subject to section 14, the exclusive venue for any judicial proceeding will be the state and federal courts located in the same jurisdiction.
16. Separate from Vaulternal's main product
These Terms apply only to Vaulternal's utility services. They are separate from, and do not extend, the Terms of Service that govern Vaulternal's main product. Use of the main product is subject to its own terms.
17. Severability and entire agreement
If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect, and the unenforceable provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. These Terms, together with the applicable Tool addendum and the Tools Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Vaulternal regarding the Tools.
18. Contact
For questions about these Terms, contact legal@vaulternal.com.
Time Capsule addendum
This addendum applies to the Time Capsule tool and supplements the umbrella Tools Terms of Service. Where this addendum and the umbrella Terms conflict, this addendum controls only on the points it explicitly addresses.
Pricing tier: free.
A1. Service description
Time Capsule lets you write a letter to your future self and schedule its delivery, by email, up to fifty (50) years from the date you confirm your address. The letter is delivered exclusively to the email address you confirmed.
A2. Long-horizon delivery
Letters can be scheduled for delivery up to fifty (50) years in the future. As stated in clause 3 of the umbrella Terms, "best effort" is the operative standard for the long horizon. We make no guarantee that any specific letter will be delivered fifty years from today; the further out the delivery date, the higher the cumulative risk of infrastructure, business, or operational change. Where you require guaranteed delivery to loved ones, see the main Vaulternal product.
A3. Self-letter only — no third-party delivery
Time Capsule letters are delivered exclusively to the email address you confirmed at writing time, on the date you chose. We do not redirect undelivered letters to next of kin, family members, employers, or any third party. We do not offer a "send to someone else" mode or a forwarding mechanism. This is an architectural invariant of the service.
For sending future messages to loved ones, see the main Vaulternal product.
A4. Encryption disclosure
Time Capsule uses server-managed encryption: AES-256-GCM with per-letter keys derived from a master key we hold in our secrets infrastructure. We can decrypt letters under valid legal compulsion (subpoena, court order, or equivalent process). We do not sell, share, or use your letter content for advertising, profiling, or any purpose other than the delivery you requested.
If you require zero-knowledge (subpoena-resistant) encryption, this Tool is not for you; that mode is on our roadmap but not available today.
A5. Edit, cancel, and rotate
- Edit: You may edit your letter at any time within fourteen (14) days of confirming your email. After that period, the letter content is locked.
- Cancel: You may cancel your letter at any time before delivery, regardless of whether the edit window has closed.
- Manage-link rotation: If you suspect your manage link has leaked, you may request a fresh link from the manage page. The previous link is invalidated immediately, and a single replacement link is sent to your Confirmed Email.
A6. Data retention
The Tools Privacy Policy contains the full retention schedule. In summary: pending unconfirmed letters are deleted after seven days; scheduled letters are kept until delivery; delivered letter bodies are purged thirty days after delivery (with a ninety-day audit row); cancelled letter bodies are purged within twenty-four hours; and DSAR-deleted letter bodies are purged immediately.
A7. Unsubscribe
Every email sent by Time Capsule includes both a one-click unsubscribe header (per RFC 8058) and a visible unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing cancels every pending and scheduled letter on your address and adds your address to a permanent suppression list.
A8. Tool sunset
If Time Capsule is discontinued, we will give at least ninety (90) days' written notice to each scheduled letter's Confirmed Email and either attempt mass delivery on or before each user's chosen date, or provide a self-export tool. Best effort, not guaranteed.
A9. Legal compulsion
In response to a valid subpoena, court order, or other legal process, we may be required to decrypt and produce letter content. Where lawfully permitted, we will notify the affected user before complying. Where notice is prohibited, we will publish aggregated transparency information periodically as our scale and resources allow.
Last updated: May 3, 2026