Private Notes
For your eyes only. The one space in Kinu that nothing else ever touches.
Some things you want to remember, but you never want them to come back to you on their own. A worry about a friend's health. How a hard conversation actually felt. A thought you are still working through.
Private notes are the space for exactly that. They come with one firm promise: for your eyes only.
The guarantee
Every private note is:
- Never processed by any system, algorithm, or feature
- Never shown in reminders, suggestions, or anything Kinu sends you
- Never analyzed, for any purpose, ever
- Never read by Kinu, and never shared with anyone else
This is not a setting you turn on. It is how Kinu is built. Private notes are kept apart from every other part of the app at the deepest level, so no feature can reach them even by accident.
How they differ from moments
The difference is small to describe and important in practice.
Moments are observations you record about someone, and they can come back to you when you are reconnecting with that person. That is what makes them useful. They help you show up a little more thoughtfully.
Private notes work the opposite way. They stay quiet. They appear only when you deliberately open them. No reminder, no suggestion, nothing Kinu sends you will ever mention what is inside a private note.
| Moments | Private notes | |
|---|---|---|
| Can come back to you | Yes, when you reconnect | No, only when you open them |
| Used by Kinu features | Yes | No, never |
| Read by any system | Only your own device, to power gentle reminders | Nothing reads them, ever |
| For | Things worth remembering out loud | Things worth remembering quietly |
When to use private notes
Private notes are for anything you want to keep, but would not want shown back to you or touched by anything:
- Sensitive context about someone's situation
- Your own reflections on a relationship
- Working through how you feel
- Things you want to keep, kept completely to yourself
- Anything you would only write in a personal journal
There is no format and no expectation. Write whatever helps you.
The decision test
If you are unsure whether something should be a moment or a private note, ask one question.
Would I want this to come back to me at an unexpected time?
If yes, make it a moment. If no, make it a private note.
How they are protected
Private notes get two layers of protection.
The first is the same protection as the rest of your data. When you have Kinu Plus and sync is on, your notes are encrypted on your device before they are uploaded, and they stay encrypted in transit and at rest. We do not access your relationship content as part of running Kinu. On the free plan, your notes live only on your device.
The second layer is unique to private notes. They are kept completely separate from every feature and every processing step in the app. Reminders, suggestions, the Relational Compass, analytics, none of them can reach a private note. This isolation is built into the structure of Kinu, not bolted on afterward. For the full picture of how your information is handled, see what we can and cannot see.
One simple way to think about it. Moments are for things worth remembering out loud. Private notes are for things worth remembering quietly.
A note on backup and devices
Private notes are still yours to keep safe. On Kinu Plus, they are backed up and available on your other signed-in devices, encrypted the whole way, so you do not lose them if you switch phones or reinstall. Being backed up is not the same as being read. Nothing inside Kinu looks at the contents of a private note. It is simply stored, encrypted, so you can get it back.
If you ever delete your account, your private notes go with everything else. Deletion removes your account and all server data and wipes the data on your device. You can read more in deleting your account.
Related
Adding moments
Record observations that can return when you reconnect.
What we can and cannot see
A plain breakdown of what Kinu knows and what it never touches.
How your data is stored
Where your information lives and how it is kept safe.
Free vs Plus
What sync and backup add on Kinu Plus.
Still need help? Contact support