Last updated 15 October 2026
Everything you enter in the timer — subjects, sessions, settings, exam dates, notes, goals — is saved in your browser and stays on your device by default. Locus needs a free account, so your email address, a username and your password (which is stored only as a one-way hash, so nobody can read it) are held by the account service. Your study data itself is only copied there if you turn on Sync. There is no analytics, no tracking pixel, no advertising network, and nothing is sold or shared with advertisers. The short film about Pro that free users sometimes see after a session is drawn by the app itself and loads nothing from anywhere.
Locus keeps its data in your browser's local storage — the same mechanism any website uses to remember things between visits:
This data does not leave your device on its own. Clearing your browser's site data, or using a different browser or device, starts you over unless you have backed up (Settings → Your data → Back up) or turned on Sync.
You make an account with an email address and a password, on the first screen. The account service sends you an email to confirm the address, and another if you ask to reset your password. If you tick “Stay signed in on this device”, your sign-in is kept in this browser's long-term storage so the screen is skipped next time; if you don't, it is kept for this browser tab only. You can change that, or sign out, in Settings.
What reaches the server for the friends board is a small profile: your username, plus only the fields you choose to share in Settings — your name, your streak, your minutes this week, and your level with the title that goes with it, how many badges you have and up to three badges you pick to show (a Pro mark, if you have earned one and pick it, goes the same way, and tells a friend you have Pro). They are on by default, and you can turn any of them off under “What friends can see”: that field is then left out of what is sent, not merely hidden on your own screen. Only people you have accepted as friends see your board entry, and someone can find you by typing your exact username unless you turn off being findable. Your username always goes, because that is how a friend finds you. A profile picture, if you add one, stays on your device; it is not part of what is shared.
Sync is separate from the friends board, optional, and off by default. Turning it on copies your full state — subjects, sessions and settings — to your account on the account server, so it can appear on your other signed-in devices. The server's access rules let only you read and change your own copy. Be aware that whoever runs the server can technically reach what is stored in it; the person who runs Locus does not look at it, and nothing is analysed or shared. Sync cannot be used together with a password lock (below): your data is either encrypted here or synced, not both.
Settings → Password lets you lock the app on this device with a password. Your data is then encrypted on your device before it is stored, using that password. The lock is separate from your account and has no reset: nobody, including the person who runs Locus, can recover a forgotten lock password for you. Write it down somewhere.
Locus's typefaces, scripts and everything else the pages need are served from this site itself. Nothing is loaded from Google Fonts or an advertising or analytics service. If you install Locus to your home screen, a service worker also caches the app's files on your device so it works offline; that is local caching, not data collection.
If you buy Pro, Stripe tells the account server which plan you bought, the date it runs to, whether it renews, and Stripe's own customer and subscription references. That is how Pro switches on by itself wherever you sign in. Only you can read that record, and nothing in the app can change it. Nothing from your study log goes to Stripe. The free week, and a license key if you were given one, are checked entirely on your device, and nothing is sent anywhere for them.
Your study data is yours. Settings → Your data → Back up saves all of it to a file, and the log can be exported as a spreadsheet with Pro. To delete your account, go to Settings → Your account → Delete my account: that removes your sign-in, your friends profile, your friendships, any synced copy and any Pro record from the account server straight away (copies in the service's routine backups disappear shortly after). Your study log on your own device is not touched by that; clear your browser's site data to remove it. Deleting the account does not cancel a Pro subscription in Stripe, so cancel it first (Pro page → Manage billing). Stripe keeps its own payment records, as the law requires of it. For anything else — a copy of what is held about you, a correction, a question — write to [contact address not set yet].
Locus is not aimed at children under 13, and you should not make an account if you are under 13.
If this page changes in a way that matters, the date at the top changes with it, and anything significant is mentioned in the app.