Terms of Service

1. Introduction

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of SyncNotes, including the website, synchronisation backend, and all related services provided by SyncNotes ("we," "us," or "our"), collectively referred to as the "Service."

These Terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you and SyncNotes. By accessing or using our Service, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data; accepting these Terms is not consent to unrelated processing or marketing.

If you are using the Service on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you have the authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.

SyncNotes is a trading name. A later incorporation or change of operator does not by itself replace the party responsible for your existing contract. Any transfer is subject to section 23.

2. Definitions

• "User," "you," and "your" refer to the individual accessing or using the Service.
• "Subscription" refers to the purchased right to access and use the Service according to the selected plan.
• "Vault" refers to the storage bucket provisioned for your Obsidian LiveSync data.
• "User Data" refers to notes, files, attachments, and any other material you upload or sync through the Service.
• "Trial" refers to the free beta trial period available to new users after email verification.

3. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms for changes in law, security requirements, third-party compatibility, or the features and operation of the Service. We will explain material changes by email at least 30 days before they take effect, unless an earlier change is necessary to comply with law or address an urgent security issue. Changes will not apply retrospectively to existing disputes.

If a material change adversely affects your paid Service, you may contact us to end the affected Subscription and obtain a proportionate refund for the unused paid period. We will explain your options and applicable deadlines in the notice. Where the law requires express agreement or gives you additional time or remedies, those rights apply; continued use alone does not waive them.

Minor corrections that do not reduce your rights may be made without advance notice, though we will still update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.

4. Eligibility

To use our Service, you must be at least 16 years old. By using the Service, you represent and warrant that you meet this requirement. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organisation, you represent that the organisation agrees to be bound by these Terms.

5. Description of Service

SyncNotes is a managed cloud synchronisation backend for Obsidian.md vaults using the Obsidian LiveSync plugin and S3-compatible object storage. End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is optional in Quick Setup and manual configuration. Providing an E2EE passphrase in Quick Setup enables encryption in the generated setup link. With manual configuration, you enable encryption in LiveSync yourself. Without E2EE, uploaded notes may be readable by the service operator.

Encryption and passphrases

• E2EE is optional in both setup paths. In Quick Setup, leaving the E2EE field blank disables note encryption and path obfuscation in the generated configuration. The separate Setup URI passphrase remains required to protect the link and its storage credentials.
• The Generate button creates an E2EE passphrase in your browser. Quick Setup sends the passphrases you supply to our server over HTTPS to create the encrypted setup link. We do not persist these passphrases or offer passphrase recovery. This flow is not a promise that the server never receives the encryption secret.
• The manual passphrase field does not submit its value to SyncNotes or configure LiveSync automatically. You must apply the settings in LiveSync. We cannot verify or enforce encryption settings you enter manually or later change on a device.
• Safeguard your passphrases, setup links and storage credentials. Use the same E2EE passphrase on every device connected to an encrypted vault. Account-password resets do not recover or replace your E2EE passphrase.
• Changing an encryption setting does not automatically re-encrypt existing remote data. Before changing passphrases or resetting a remote vault, make an independent local backup and follow the plugin's instructions.
• Choosing not to enable E2EE does not authorise us to use your notes for unrelated purposes or remove our security and data-protection obligations. Access remains limited as described in section 11 and the Privacy Policy.

The Service is currently offered as a beta. Features, limits, pricing, and availability may change as we improve reliability and the overall user experience, subject to section 3 and your statutory rights. Beta status does not waive those rights.

The specific features available to you depend on the Subscription plan you select. Plan details, including storage quotas, file size limits, and pricing, are shown at checkout.

Beta Programme

By using the Service during its beta phase, you acknowledge and agree that:

• The Service may not be at final production quality. You may encounter bugs, performance issues, or unexpected behaviour.
• Material changes to features, plans or limits are subject to section 3. We will not silently reduce a purchased entitlement during its paid period.
• Beta pricing is introductory and may not reflect pricing at general availability. We will give existing subscribers at least 30 days notice before any price increase takes effect on their plan.
• We may need to perform maintenance that temporarily affects data access. We will use reasonable efforts to schedule this during off-peak hours and notify users in advance where possible.
• Trial and billing expiry follow the retention periods and deletion-notice process in section 12, regardless of beta status.
• We do not guarantee a date for general availability. A transition or planned discontinuation will be communicated at least 30 days in advance, with applicable termination, export and refund rights preserved.

6. User Accounts

You must create an account to access the Service. You are responsible for:

• Providing accurate, current, and complete information during registration.
• Verifying your email address before your Trial or Subscription begins.
• Maintaining the confidentiality of your password and account credentials.
• Use of your account and credentials by people you authorise, and taking reasonable steps to prevent unauthorised access. This does not transfer responsibility for security failures attributable to us.
• Notifying us immediately of any unauthorised use of your account at support@syncnotes.dev.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account if we believe you have violated these Terms or if your account poses a risk to our Service or other users.

7. Free Trial

• New users receive a free beta trial period after verifying their email address. The duration of the Trial is displayed at sign-up and may vary during the beta phase.
• The Trial starts only after email verification is complete; registration alone does not start it.
• Trial accounts have the same storage and file size limits as paid accounts.
• At the end of the Trial, a paid plan is required to continue writing and syncing changes. Read-only retention is described in section 12. A trial does not itself authorise a payment.
• We reserve the right to modify or discontinue the Trial at any time with reasonable notice.
• Each user is eligible for one Trial. We may limit or revoke Trial eligibility at our discretion.

8. Subscription & Billing

Access to the Service beyond the Trial requires a paid Subscription. Unless otherwise stated at checkout:

• Subscriptions are billed annually in advance through Lemon Squeezy, the Merchant of Record for checkout transactions. The seller and applicable purchase terms are identified at checkout.
• Your Subscription will automatically renew at the end of each billing period unless you cancel before the renewal date.
• By subscribing, you authorise us to charge your payment method at the beginning of each billing period at the then-current rate.
• Prices and applicable taxes are displayed at checkout. Price increases apply to a future renewal, not an already paid period, with at least 30 days notice and the opportunity to cancel before renewal. Any express agreement required by law will be obtained.
• You may cancel your Subscription at any time through your account settings or the Lemon Squeezy customer portal. Access continues until the end of the current billing period.
• Outside statutory rights, the refund rights in these Terms and applicable checkout terms, refunds are discretionary. Contact support with your order reference. Lemon Squeezy may also issue refunds under its own purchase policies. No 14-day support deadline limits claims for a defective service or other statutory remedies.
• If payment fails, we will notify you and Lemon Squeezy may retry the charge. A failed payment alone does not immediately remove storage access; when the paid entitlement expires, section 12 applies.

Consumers purchasing remotely generally have a statutory 14-day withdrawal period from conclusion of the paid service contract, subject to applicable law. You can notify us of withdrawal by an unequivocal statement to support@syncnotes.dev identifying the account and order; no particular wording is required. This is separate from cancelling a future renewal. Starting a trial, syncing notes or accepting these Terms does not by itself waive a statutory withdrawal right. If you expressly request paid service to start during that period, a proportionate charge for service already supplied may apply only where the legal conditions are met. Statutory refunds will be processed within the applicable legal deadline, normally 14 days after withdrawal notification.

9. Acceptable Use

You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You shall not:

• Use the Service for any illegal or unauthorised purpose.
• Violate any applicable laws or regulations, including those in your country of residence.
• Upload, transmit, or store content that infringes intellectual property rights, contains malware, or is otherwise harmful or illegal.
• Attempt to breach any security or authentication measures of the Service or its infrastructure.
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers and networks connected to it.
• Abuse storage quotas or use automated tools to circumvent quota enforcement.
• Impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
• Exceed the usage limits associated with your Subscription plan.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, with or without notice, depending on the severity of the violation.

10. Illegal Content & Abuse Reports

If you believe content or activity on the Service is illegal, abusive, infringing, or otherwise violates these Terms, please notify us at abuse@syncnotes.dev.

Your notice should include enough information for us to understand and locate the issue, including a description of the content or activity, why you believe it is unlawful or violates these Terms, relevant account or technical details if known, and your contact information.

We may investigate reports, restrict access, suspend accounts, preserve relevant records, or remove data where required or permitted by law. We may also reject notices that are clearly unfounded or insufficiently detailed.

11. User Data

You retain full ownership of all User Data you upload or sync through the Service. By using the Service, you grant us a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, transmit, and process your User Data solely as necessary to provide the Service to you.

We will not access your User Data except:

• To provide and maintain the Service.
• To prevent or address technical or security issues.
• To respond to support requests with your explicit permission.
• To investigate a specific abuse report or suspected violation, limited to what is necessary and lawful.
• As required by applicable law or court order.

You are solely responsible for the accuracy, legality, and appropriateness of your User Data. You represent that you have all necessary rights to provide that data to us.

If you enable E2EE, you are responsible for safeguarding your passphrase and using the same passphrase on every device. SyncNotes does not store or recover it. Without the passphrase or a usable configured device or local copy, your encrypted remote notes cannot be recovered.

SyncNotes is a synchronisation service, not your sole backup or archive. Changes, deletions and conflicts can propagate between devices. Maintain independent backups and verify important transfers. Operator backups, where maintained, are for service recovery and do not constitute a promise of a particular restore point or individual-file recovery. These responsibilities do not exclude liability for our own breach or your statutory rights.

12. Data Retention & Deletion

Please see our Privacy Policy for full details. In summary:

• If your Trial expires without converting to a paid plan, your vault enters a 14-day read-only grace period before permanent deletion.
• When your paid entitlement expires, your vault enters a 30-day read-only grace period. Cancelling renewal does not start this period early; access continues through the paid term. A failed payment alone does not start it either.
• Read-only access permits downloading existing data but blocks uploads, modifications, and remote deletions.
• We attempt to send a warning email before scheduled expiry deletion. Email delivery or receipt is not guaranteed, and the retention deadline is not extended because a warning is missed. Check the deadline in your dashboard and export before it expires.
• Reactivating your Subscription during the grace period cancels the scheduled deletion.
• You may request immediate deletion of your data by contacting us at support@syncnotes.dev.

These grace periods concern trial or billing expiry. An explicit deletion request or a lawful security or abuse restriction can follow a different process. After deletion from active storage, recovery is not promised. Any residual backup copies and records retained for legal obligations remain subject to the Privacy Policy and applicable law, not available as ongoing vault storage.

13. Intellectual Property

The Service is built upon open-source technologies including RustFS and the Obsidian LiveSync plugin, each governed by their respective licences. SyncNotes owns its specific service implementation, including the website design, user dashboard, provisioning infrastructure, and related code.

We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service in accordance with these Terms. This licence does not include the right to:

• Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Service.
• Copy or modify the Service or any of its content.
• Transfer, sell, or sublicence the Service to any third party.
• Remove or alter any proprietary notices contained in the Service.

These restrictions do not override rights granted by applicable open-source licences or mandatory law.

14. Third-Party Services

The Service integrates with or relies on the following third-party services:

• Obsidian.md – A note-taking application. SyncNotes is not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian.
• Obsidian LiveSync Plugin – An open-source community plugin for real-time sync. Maintained independently by its community developers.
• Lemon Squeezy – Our payment processor and Merchant of Record. Your payment information is handled directly by Lemon Squeezy under their own terms and privacy policy.
• Resend – Our email delivery provider, used to send transactional and account-related emails.

Your direct use of third-party products is subject to their terms. We do not control independent plugin updates or your local configuration. We remain responsible for our own contractual and statutory obligations, including where we use third-party infrastructure to supply the Service.

15. Feedback

We welcome feedback, suggestions, and ideas about the Service. Any Feedback you provide is entirely voluntary. You grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, incorporate, and develop such Feedback without any obligation to you.

16. Service Availability & Disclaimer of Warranties

We will make reasonable efforts to keep the Service available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, we do not guarantee continuous, uninterrupted access. The Service may be temporarily unavailable due to maintenance, upgrades, or circumstances beyond our control.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR MEET YOUR SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS.

Consumers retain their statutory rights to a conforming digital service, required updates, remedies for non-conformity and other protections. The disclaimers above apply only to the extent lawful and do not exclude these rights or excuse our failure to take required security measures.

17. Limitation of Liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for fraud, death, or personal injury caused by our negligence, intentional misconduct, gross negligence, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including applicable personal-data protection rights.

For business users acting in a commercial or professional capacity only, and subject to the above, our maximum aggregate liability to you for any claim arising from these Terms or your use of the Service shall not exceed the total amount paid by you to SyncNotes in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

For those business users only, and where lawful, we exclude indirect or consequential loss and loss of business profits, revenue or goodwill. These exclusions and the monetary cap do not apply to consumers. Consumer liability is determined by applicable law; we do not exclude responsibility merely because a loss involves notes, synchronisation or a software defect.

18. Indemnification

This clause applies only to business users, not consumers. To the extent lawful, a business user must reimburse reasonable losses and legal costs resulting from a third-party claim caused by that user's unlawful content or culpable breach of these Terms. This does not cover loss caused by our own breach or misconduct. We will promptly notify you of the claim, permit reasonable participation in its defence, mitigate loss, and not agree to a settlement binding you without your consent, which must not be unreasonably withheld.

19. Account Termination

You may close your account at any time by contacting us at support@syncnotes.dev. Tell us whether you want to cancel renewal or close and delete your account:

• Cancelling renewal preserves access through the paid term, followed by section 12's retention period.
• Explicit account closure or immediate deletion can end access and remove active vault data earlier. Export your notes first. We will clarify the requested action before processing it.
• We will coordinate outstanding billing cancellation with the Merchant of Record. Refund and withdrawal rights remain as described in section 8.

We may suspend or terminate your account immediately if you violate these Terms, engage in fraudulent activity, or pose a risk to the Service or other users. Restrictions will be proportionate. Where lawful and practical, we will explain the reason and allow you to remedy the issue or challenge the decision through support. Urgent security or legal restrictions may take effect first. Refunds and data access remain subject to applicable law; termination does not automatically forfeit statutory rights.

20. Force Majeure

SyncNotes shall not be liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from causes outside its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, war, terrorism, civil unrest, government action, fire, floods or pandemics, only to the extent permitted by law. We will take reasonable steps to mitigate the effect. A supplier outage does not automatically excuse our obligations, and mandatory termination, refund and consumer rights remain unaffected.

21. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Portugal and, where applicable, the laws of the European Union, without regard to conflict of law provisions.

Before initiating any formal proceedings, we encourage you to contact us at support@syncnotes.dev so we can attempt to resolve the matter informally within 30 days.

If informal resolution is not possible, you have the right to bring proceedings in the courts available to you under applicable law, including consumer protections concerning courts in your country of residence. Seeking informal resolution is optional and does not delay legal deadlines or urgent remedies. Information about recognised consumer dispute-resolution bodies is available through the European Commission's consumer redress directory.

These Terms do not affect any statutory rights you may have as a consumer under the laws of your country of residence.

22. Waiver & Severability

The failure of SyncNotes to enforce any right or provision of these Terms shall not constitute a waiver of that right or provision. If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, it shall be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

23. Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any other agreements referenced herein, constitute the entire agreement between you and SyncNotes regarding your use of the Service and supersede any prior agreements relating to the same subject matter.

Future incorporation or transfer of the Service

We may propose transferring operation of SyncNotes and the related contracts to a company we establish or another successor as part of a genuine business transfer. We will notify you by email in advance, normally at least 30 days before the proposed transfer, identifying the new operator, its contact details, the effective date and any effect on your personal data.

A transfer must preserve your existing paid entitlement, applicable refund and retention rights, and statutory protections. It does not automatically release the existing operator from accrued obligations or liability. We will obtain your consent where required by law; this clause is not advance consent to a transfer that legally requires it. If the transfer also involves a material adverse change, section 3 applies. Any transfer of personal data must comply with applicable data-protection law and the information provided to you.

24. Contact

If you have any questions about these Terms or the Service, please contact us at:

SyncNotes
Email: support@syncnotes.dev