frequently asked questions

Everything
you want to know,
straight up.

grain is still in development. In the meantime, we've tried to answer everything you might wonder before using it.

the product

An app for taking notes with automatic timestamps, which turns your day into an intelligent timeline — no folders, no categories, no effort.

Those are organisation tools. grain is a capture tool. You don't have to decide where to put a thought: write, and time does the rest.

The key difference is the timestamp per line, not per document. Every grain knows exactly when it was born, making the timeline a faithful map of your day — not an archive to manage.

No. The only optional thing is the #tag system: if you write #work or #idea at the end of a grain, you can filter that category across all days. But even this isn't required — grain works perfectly without it.

It's grain's main view: a vertical chronological flow of your grains, automatically grouped by time of day (morning, afternoon, evening). You don't have to create anything — the timeline emerges from your timestamps.

In future we want to add pattern statistics (what time you write most, which tags recur, which hours you're most productive) — but without artificial intelligence: just your data, read clearly.

Absolutely. grain doesn't distinguish between work and life — it's the same thing. Many of us will use it to keep both worlds together in the same flow: a work call at 9, a personal thought at 1pm, a creative idea at 10pm. All in the same timeline, in its place.

privacy & data

grain is offline-first: your grains are saved locally on your device. No data is sent to external servers until you activate sync (available with grain+).

When sync is active, data travels with end-to-end encryption. Not even we can read your grains.

No. grain has no advertising, doesn't sell data to third parties and doesn't use marketing trackers. The business model is simple: the base product is free forever; grain+ is paid for those who want advanced features. Nothing else.

No. Download the app, open, write. No email, no password, no registration. An account becomes necessary only if you want to activate cross-device sync with grain+.

Your grains remain on your device until you uninstall the app. You can export them at any time in plain text format — a format that works on any system, today and in twenty years.

platforms

grain is designed for iOS, Android and web. The web interface is optimised for both mobile and desktop — so it works on any browser, on any screen.

Native apps for iOS and Android guarantee the best offline experience and system notifications. The web is ideal for those who want to access from a computer without installing anything.

Yes. grain is offline-first by design: write, read and browse the timeline even without network. Synchronisation — available with grain+ — activates automatically when you come back online.

The same soul, adapted to the screen. On mobile the timeline is vertical and thumb-optimised. On desktop the layout opens in two columns — timeline on the left, day detail on the right — to use the space more richly.

Yes. grain has a single theme in light and dark variants, which automatically follows your operating system settings. Nothing to configure.

grain+

grain+ is the version of grain for those who use it seriously every day — in teams, across devices, with a need to share. It adds advanced features without removing anything from those who use the base grain.

The main grain+ features are: real-time shared notes (multiple people write the same note, each with their own timestamp and author), end-to-end encrypted cross-device sync, cloud backup, PDF meeting minutes export and expiring shareable links.

grain+ will be paid, but we're still defining the pricing details. What we can say is that base grain will remain free forever, without artificial limitations.

To write in the shared note you need a grain+ account. To read, you can share a public link that opens in the browser without installing anything — great for sharing meeting minutes with people who don't use grain.

launch

grain is still in active development. We don't have a precise date — we prefer to launch when it's ready rather than launch in a hurry. Come back here or follow our updates to know when it will be available.

For now the most direct way is to come back to this page. We're evaluating whether and how to communicate updates — probably with something lightweight, without invasive newsletters.

It's a project we care about deeply, built with care. The landing page, the identity, the architecture — everything was thought through before writing a line of app code. That should say a lot about the seriousness of the approach.

Yes, gladly. Write to us — contacts are at the bottom of the page. Feedback from those who find grain before it launches is what matters most.

Didn't find
what you were looking for?

Write to us directly. We'll reply with the same care we put into writing these answers.

ciao@get-grain.app