Frequently Asked Questions
Hearthly · hello@gethearthly.app
About Hearthly
What is Hearthly? Hearthly is a shared journaling and care coordination app for families supporting a loved one through an illness or ongoing health situation — and for individuals keeping notes on their own health. It's a place to log what's happening, coordinate with your care circle, and surface patterns from what you've already written down.
Is Hearthly a medical app? No. Hearthly is a journaling and organization tool. It does not diagnose conditions, interpret symptoms, predict health outcomes, or provide medical advice. Always bring questions to a licensed healthcare provider.
Who is Hearthly for? Hearthly is for family caregivers, spouses, adult children, close friends, and anyone managing their own ongoing health situation. It's designed for the everyday work of keeping track — not for clinical settings.
Is Hearthly available outside the United States? Not officially. The service is designed for US users. Some features (like medication reminders and visit summaries) are built around US healthcare norms.
Getting Started
How do I create an account? Sign up at gethearthly.app with your email or a Google account. No credit card is required to start your 7-day free trial.
What is a care circle? A care circle is a private group of people — family members, close friends, hired helpers — who share notes and updates about one person. Everyone you invite can see the same daily logs, medication list, and appointment notes. You control who's in the circle.
How do I invite someone to my care circle? From the Care Circle page, enter their email address. They'll receive an invitation and can join with a Hearthly account.
What are condition packs? Condition packs are sets of note prompts, tips, and journaling fields tailored to specific conditions — dementia, Parkinson's, cancer, heart failure, and more. They help your circle notice and record what matters most for that situation.
Privacy and Data
Who can see my notes? Only you and the people you invite to your care circle. In the ordinary course, Hearthly staff do not read your journal entries; access is limited to the small number of personnel and service providers who need it to operate, secure, support, or back up Hearthly, and we never share your notes with insurers, employers, advertisers, or data brokers. AI-generated summaries (like morning moments and calendar pattern views) are produced from your notes but shown only to you and your circle. See our Privacy Policy for details.
Do you sell my data? No. We do not sell your personal information or health notes to anyone.
Is my health information safe? We encrypt data in transit and at rest. Health notes are treated with care — we do not share them with insurers, employers, or advertisers. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
Do you share my notes with AI companies? To generate in-app summaries and pattern notes, relevant parts of your journal entries may be sent to our AI providers. Our current providers are Anthropic (Claude) for chat and written summaries, and Google (Gemini) for the embeddings that power search and pattern detection; the up-to-date list is in our Privacy Policy, and if we ever add or change a provider we'll update it there. Per our agreements, your data is not used to train any AI model, under our current provider agreements (see the Privacy Policy), and AI-generated content is shown only within your Hearthly account. You can turn AI features off in settings.
Can I export or delete my data? Yes to both. You can delete your account from account settings. If you own a care circle with other members, we'll first ask you to transfer ownership so their shared history isn't lost; after that, your personal data is permanently deleted within 30 days. To export your journal data, email support@gethearthly.app.
What happens to my data if Hearthly shuts down? If we ever have to discontinue Hearthly, we'll give you advance notice (at least 30 days where practical) by email and in-app, and keep your account in a state where you can export everything before access ends. If you've prepaid for time you can no longer use, we'll refund the unused portion where we're able. After the export window closes, we delete user data on our normal schedule, except records we must keep by law. If Hearthly is ever sold or transferred — including in a bankruptcy — your data stays subject to a policy at least as protective as this one, and we'll aim to give you a chance to export or delete it first. Full details are in Section 16.4 of the Terms and Sections 7–8 of the Privacy Policy.
Plans and Billing
What happens during the free trial? Your 7-day trial includes everything in Hearthly — the shared care circle, daily check-ins, medication reminders, journaling, condition packs, and AI features — with no credit card required to start.
What do paid plans add? Hearthly is one simple plan: $29.99/month or $299.99/year (save 17%). Subscribing keeps everything unlocked after your trial — daily log, medications, appointments, condition packs, AI insights, advanced pattern views, visit summary packets you can hand to a doctor, the quiet caregiver check-in, and generous photo and document storage (5,000 photos and 1,000 documents per circle, up to 25 GB — set well above typical family care use). Plan details are on the pricing page.
How do I upgrade or downgrade? From your account settings, go to Subscription. You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time.
What happens when I cancel? Your paid features remain active until the end of your billing period. After that, your account becomes read-only — you can still sign in and view everything, but adding and editing is paused until you subscribe again. We don't delete your notes or circle just because you cancel.
Do you offer refunds? All purchases are final. Refunds are at Hearthly's discretion — we review requests case by case, especially for billing errors or genuine hardship. Email support@gethearthly.app within 7 days of a charge and we'll take a look. If we ever cancel your paid subscription without cause, we'll refund the unused portion of your current billing period. (If you subscribed through the Google Play Store or Apple App Store, refunds are handled by that store under its own policy — see the next question.)
What if I subscribed through the Google Play Store or Apple App Store? If you subscribe through an app store rather than our website, that store processes your payment and its own billing, renewal, cancellation, and refund rules also apply. You'll manage and cancel that subscription in the store's account settings (for example, the Subscriptions section of Google Play), not in Hearthly's in-app settings, and refund requests go to the store, not to us. Everything else about how Hearthly works stays the same. Full details are in Section 8.9 of our Terms of Service.
Are First Circle members held to different rules? No. First Circle members get the same care and the same Terms of Service as every other member. First Circle membership is a benefit, not a shield — if anyone (founding or otherwise) violates our Terms or community standards, we may end First Circle benefits, end the account, or both, depending on what happened. We may also wind down a complimentary program itself (like the beta period) when its time is up; that's separate from anything to do with member conduct.
Using Hearthly
What is the daily log? The daily log is where you or your circle record what happened today — mood, sleep, meals, symptoms, medications, and any notes worth remembering. Short entries are fine. The goal is consistency, not completeness.
What are calendar insights? Calendar insights surface patterns from past daily logs — for example, noticing that difficult days often follow poor sleep. These are drawn entirely from what your circle has entered. They are not predictions or clinical findings.
What is a visit summary? A visit summary is a printable one-pager of recent notes, patterns, and questions — designed to help you make the most of a short doctor's appointment. It is a journaling summary the family compiles and hands to the doctor, not a medical record or clinical report.
What is the quiet caregiver check-in? A short set of warm, plain-language questions for the caregiver to reflect on how things are landing right now. It's private — only you see it — and Hearthly does not score it, classify it, or treat it as a medical assessment.
Can I use Hearthly to track my own health, not a loved one's? Yes. When you set up your account, choose "Journaling for myself." Your dashboard will use first-person labels and the circle features are optional.
Can I connect my Google Calendar? Yes. You can connect Google Calendar (read-only) to bring upcoming appointments into a care circle's schedule view. You choose which calendars feed which circle, and other members see your events as a generic "Appointment" with the time, not the title. See our Privacy Policy for details.
AI in the daily log and respite tools
What are the little AI suggestions I see in the daily log? After you pick a mood, Hearthly may offer one short, warm follow-up question (something like "Did anything help her settle today?") to make the blank textarea less intimidating. It's optional. Tap the × to dismiss it, or just ignore it. It's generated only from the mood you chose and recent context from your own logs.
What is the "From your past logs" panel? As you type a note, Hearthly quietly searches your own logs from the last 30 days for similar moments and shows up to three short snippets you can tap to re-read. It's there to help you notice patterns ("we tried earlier dinner two weeks ago and it helped") — not to tell you what to do.
What does "What's helped you before" do in the respite tools? When the app notices you've been carrying a heavier load, it summarizes coping strategies you have already used in past respite and well-being entries — a walk, a phone call, an early bedtime. It reflects your own history back to you. It's designed to reflect your own history back to you, not to generate new advice.
What are appointment talking points? If you have an appointment scheduled in the next 7 days, you can tap Generate talking points and Hearthly will organize the last 30 days of your own log entries into three lists — observations, questions, and changes I've noticed — written in plain caregiver language. It's a draft to help you prepare, not a medical summary. You decide what to share.
Is any of this medical advice? No. None of these features interpret health data, score anything, or replace a clinician. They organize what you've already written so you can notice it and talk about it with the people who matter.
Can I turn the AI features off? Yes. AI features can be turned off in your account settings; when they're off, your entries aren't sent to AI providers for these features. See the Privacy Policy for the details on what's sent and to whom.
Still have questions?
Email us at hello@gethearthly.app — we read every message.
Beta testing & the First Circle
What is the Hearthly beta? The closed beta lets a small group of families use Hearthly before public launch, share feedback, and help us catch what's not quite right. Beta participants get free access during the beta cycle and, if they meet our participation requirements, become Hearthly First Circle members.
What does First Circle membership mean? First Circle member is an honorary thank-you for helping us build Hearthly. It comes with optional public recognition and a distinctive ring around your profile avatar in the app. That's it — it is a token of appreciation, not a business relationship.
Is First Circle member status equity, ownership, or a job offer? No. It explicitly does not include equity, ownership, profit-sharing, board seats, voting rights, intellectual property rights, or any claim on Hearthly's valuation or sale proceeds. The benefits listed above are the complete compensation. The full language lives in Section 19 of our Terms of Service.
Will my name and photo be public? Only if you opt in. At the end of the beta we'll ask whether you want to be listed on our public Friends of Hearthly page. You can say no and still keep every other benefit, and you can ask us to remove your listing at any time by emailing legal@gethearthly.app.
Can I hide the avatar ring? The ring is part of the First Circle member designation, so it shows up wherever your profile appears inside Hearthly. If you'd strongly prefer not to have it visible, email legal@gethearthly.app and we'll talk through options.
Can I transfer my First Circle member status to someone else? No — it's personal to your account and not transferable.
Who owns my feedback? When you send us feedback, bug reports, or suggestions, you give us permission to use and build on those ideas inside Hearthly. That's about the ideas only; your account data still belongs to you, and feedback doesn't create equity or any other entitlement.
Where can I read the full beta terms? The full terms are in Section 19 of the Terms of Service, and the data-handling details are in Section 16 of the Privacy Policy.