No. Open it and start writing. Everything is saved on the device you are using, and nothing leaves it.

An account is what makes your notebooks appear on your other devices, and what lets you share a page with someone. If you never want either of those, you never need one.

2 notebooks, folders and canvases, with as many pages inside them as you like — and every ink tool, tags, views, search on this device, and import and export. No account, no card, and it does not expire.

Paying does one of two things: takes the limits off, or puts your notebooks on more than one device. The pricing page lays out which is which.

Yes, all of it. Tern writes to your device first and syncs afterwards, so a plane, a basement or a tunnel changes nothing about how it behaves. When you are back online it catches up on its own.

Two devices that were both edited while offline merge when they meet. You will never be asked to pick which version to keep.

Yes, where the device can read handwriting — and that part is free, on the device you are using. It needs no account, because the reading happens on the device itself.

What the subscription adds is reach: search that spans every device you own rather than only the one in your hand. Search always finds typed text, sticky notes, page titles, notebook names and the text inside imported PDFs. Where a device cannot read handwriting, the search screen says so plainly rather than quietly finding nothing.

It runs in a browser today. The iPhone, iPad and Android apps are next.

Every device does every job. There is no cut-down version for a small screen — what changes is the layout, and it changes with the size of the window, not with the kind of device. A phone in landscape and a tablet in portrait get the arrangement that fits, not the arrangement someone decided a phone deserves.

Yes — Apple Pencil, S Pen, or any active stylus your device supports. Pressure and tilt are used wherever the hardware reports them, so a line thickens when you press and broadens when you lean.

Your palm resting on the screen will not draw, and you can use a finger to scroll while the stylus writes.

Yes. Export a page, a notebook, or everything, as PDF. Imported PDFs come back out as PDFs with your writing on them.

Nothing you make in Tern is trapped in Tern. A notes app that is hard to leave is a notes app that has stopped trying.

Not today, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. Your notes travel over an encrypted connection and are stored on encrypted disks, and the rules on the server stop any other account from reading them. But they are not encrypted in a way that would make them unreadable to the server itself.

If that matters to you, Tern works fully without an account — and then your notes never leave your device at all.

A share link opens in any browser with no sign-up and no app. You can put a passcode on it, give it a date to stop working, and revoke it at any moment — which takes effect immediately, not at the next sync.

Every link you have made is listed in one place inside the app, so you are never wondering what is still out there.

No. Template packs are bought once and kept. They are not rented, and they do not stop working if you stop subscribing.

Yes, from inside the app, without asking anyone and without being talked out of it. It removes your notebooks, the ink on every page, your photos and imported PDFs, your tags and views, and every share link, which stops working at once.

The copy on the device you are using stays unless you tick the box that says otherwise — signing out has never taken your notes away, and deleting an account should not surprise you by doing it either.

Deleted notebooks and pages go to Recently deleted and wait 30 days before they are really gone. You can put them back from there.