Support

Your account is how your family finds you on any phone, tablet or computer — sign in and your calendar is there. It also keeps your keys locked with a secret made from your password in your browser (your password itself never leaves it), so when you sign in somewhere new you can read your family's data straight away. Only grown-ups need one; kids are people inside your family, not accounts. Want to look around first? Try the demo — a sample family that lives only in your browser, no account needed.

Not the shared calendar. Tap Forgot your password? on the sign-in screen and follow the link we email you. Choose a new password, then:

• If you made a recovery code, type it. It unlocks your keys and ChalkFam locks them again with your new password. Nothing is lost, including your private items.
• If you didn't, your account gets a new key, and someone in your family who can approve people approves you again with the safety code (see below). The shared calendar, lists and chores come back. Your own private items (cycle planner, private appointments) were locked with your personal key, which only the old password or the recovery code can open, so they can't be brought back by anyone, including us; they are deleted, also for the partner you shared your planner with, and you choose your partner again.

If you are the only one in your family who can approve people (on your own, or the only approver): without your recovery code, nobody can approve you again and your family's data will be unreadable. Make a recovery code now (Settings → Account), or let another grown-up approve people (Settings → Family → Can approve), and keep a Backup everything file somewhere safe.

Yes, if you can keep it somewhere safe (a password manager, or printed in a drawer). Settings → Account → Recovery code shows a long code once. It is a second way to unlock your keys if you forget your password. We never see it and cannot show it to you again; if you lose it, make a new one, which replaces the old one.

Your keys are locked with a secret your browser makes from your password, and we never have that secret. A new password makes a new secret, which can't open the old lock — that is what stops anyone (us included) from reading your data with just a reset email. Without a recovery code, someone in your family hands you the family key again by approving you, with the safety code from your screen. Until then your new key gets nothing, not even when the family key next changes, so someone who only got into your email cannot slip in.

Settings → Account. Changing the password (you need the current one) also re-locks your keys with the new one.

ChalkFam's saved copy in that browser: the calendar and all other data, the daily snapshots, the keys, photos for the photo frame, saved places and the weather cache, and your sign-in. Only your look and language choices stay. Leaving the family, deleting your account and being removed do the same. It all comes back from the cloud when you sign in again. Settings → Privacy & your data → Clear ChalkFam from this browser does the same whenever you choose; the look and language choices stay there too (clear the site's data in your browser to remove those). Neither touches anything else on your phone or computer, and neither deletes your account or your family's data.

Settings → Account → Delete my account. You sign in again with your password, and the screen lists exactly what goes: your email and sign-in, your place in the family, every copy of your keys (so your private items can't be opened by anyone), and ChalkFam's saved copy in that browser. It happens immediately — there is no waiting period and nothing to email us. If you are the only member, your family's encrypted data goes too. If you own a family that has other members, first make someone else the owner (Settings → Family → members → Make owner) or delete the family.

Settings → Privacy & your data → Download my data saves a readable file with your family's shared data, your own private data (cycle planner, private appointments), your account email and the date. It never contains anyone else's private data. Export calendar (.ics) gives your events for other calendar apps, and Backup everything makes a file you can restore from later.

Every family gets a code like SUNNY-FOX-OAK-4821 when it is created. Find it on the Family page, with Copy, Share and QR buttons. The code is how someone asks to join; it is not a password — nobody gets in unless someone already in the family approves them by typing the safety code from their screen.

1. They open ChalkFam (or scan your QR code), create an account, choose Join my family and enter the code with their name.
2. Their screen shows a 12-digit safety code. The owner (or a member the owner allows) opens the Family page (or Settings → Family), checks the email address on the request, and types that code. Ask for it in person or on the phone, never from a message or from the name on the request (names can't contain digits).
3. Their account receives the family key and the calendar appears within a few seconds.

Approval is what hands over the key, so only approve people you recognise. If the code doesn't match, nothing is handed over: deny the request. Signing in to your own account on another phone, tablet or computer needs no approval: just sign in.

Kids don't need accounts — add them on the Family screen; they use ChalkFam on a shared family screen or the wall display.

The family's owner (whoever created it, unless they handed it on) can remove a member or make someone else the owner under Settings → Family. Anyone else can Leave this family there. Each of these asks for your password. For a removed person, ChalkFam stops syncing at once and clears the family's data wherever they are signed in the next time they open it, and the owner's ChalkFam replaces the family key right away, so they can't read anything that changes later. When someone leaves, the key is replaced the next time the owner, or someone who can approve people, opens ChalkFam (Settings → Family may ask for their password to do it).

The owner opens Settings → Family → Delete this family and types the family's name. Every encrypted calendar, list and setting in the cloud, every key and every membership is deleted immediately. Download your data first if you might want it.

• Sign in to your account on your new phone or computer — your calendar comes back with your password.
• To shut ChalkFam out on the lost one, use Settings → Account → Sign out everywhere else: that sign-in stops working within the hour and stops receiving changes. If it was someone else's account, the owner can also remove them and approve them again when they ask to rejoin. ChalkFam cannot reach the lost phone or computer itself, and it keeps whatever ChalkFam had already saved there, so its screen lock, or a remote wipe from the phone or computer's own maker, is still worth doing.

1. On the tablet, sign in, then open Settings → Wall display → Start wall display. It goes full screen, keeps the screen awake and dims overnight.
2. On iPad, add ChalkFam to the Home Screen from the Share menu first, then start wall display from there; on Android and Chrome, use "Install app".
3. Turn on Guided Access (iPad) or screen pinning (Android) if little hands are around.

The wall display never shows private items or the cycle planner, and it relocks every PIN when it starts. Press Esc or tap "Exit wall display" to leave.

• Best: an .ics file or a subscription link from the school's website (look for "Add to calendar" or "iCal"). Most school sites can't be read from inside a web app, so ChalkFam usually asks you to open the link, which downloads the file, and pick that file; re-import it when the school updates it, and only what changed is updated. If a link can be read directly, ChalkFam checks it once a day while the app is open (a normal web request to the school's site).
• A PDF or photo of the year calendar works too — text is read in your browser, nothing is uploaded. Photograph it flat, in good light, one page at a time. Check the preview table: dates it wasn't sure about are marked, and you can edit anything before importing.
• Or paste text from an email or newsletter.
• Assign each school to the right kids; re-importing the same source later updates the existing events instead of duplicating them.

No. The assistant answers common questions and adds things with a built-in rules engine in any browser. For free-form questions it can use your browser's built-in model if it has one, or offer a one-time download of a small model that runs in your browser. The download is optional, shows its size and progress, is cached by the browser, and your family's data never leaves your browser either way. Clearing site data removes it.

Most actions have Undo in the toast that appears right after. Beyond that, ChalkFam keeps a local snapshot of your data every day (the last 14) in each browser you use: Settings → Privacy & your data → Snapshots, pick a day, and confirm. A restore replaces today's data with that day's, so take a Backup everything (.json) first if you're unsure. Backups can be restored from the same place.

Yes, once you have signed in with that browser. Everything is saved in the browser first and syncs when a connection is back. Signing in for the first time, joining a family, weather and travel times need a connection.

Your family's data is encrypted in your browser before it syncs, and only approved family accounts can unlock it. Private appointments and the cycle planner have a second lock that only their owner (and a chosen partner, for the cycle) can open. The partner is tied to the account and key the owner confirmed when choosing them, so nobody else in the family can redirect it. The privacy page lists exactly what is stored, what we never see, and which services the app talks to.

No. Donations are gifts and are non-refundable, including if ChalkFam changes, stops working or shuts down (see the terms). You can cancel a monthly donation any time to stop future charges, from the link in your Stripe receipt email.