What happens if I don't use my free account?

Short version: do something with Harbor once every few months and there’s nothing to think about. Open the app, jot a note, tick off a task — any of it keeps a free account happy indefinitely.

Here’s the longer version, because we’d always rather over-explain than surprise you.

This only applies to free accounts that go completely quiet. If you’re paying, none of the below is true — a subscription is never on an inactivity clock, and your notes stay put no matter how long you’re away. And even on the free plan, the smallest bit of activity resets everything.

Quick thing to clear up, since it’s easy to mix up: this is separate from hitting your free-plan limits. Reaching a limit just stops you adding new notes, notebooks, or tags — you keep full access to everything you’ve already saved. Inactivity is its own clock, and it runs regardless of where you are against your limits. (More on the plan itself: Is there a free plan?.)

The timeline, if a free account goes fully untouched:

• Around three months of silence, the account locks and you can’t sign in. Nothing is gone — your notes are all still there, waiting. To switch it back on, just email help@harbor.my and a real person will flip it back on for you.
• Around six months, the account and its data are deleted for good. This only ever happens to accounts that have been genuinely abandoned.

And you’ll hear from us — a lot — long before any of that. We send a steady run of reminder emails across those months, so the clock can only run all the way down if you ignore a real stack of “hey, your Harbor account is about to expire” notes. Any time before the three-month mark, the smallest bit of activity resets the countdown — and even after it locks, one note to help@harbor.my gets you back in, with everything exactly where you left it.

Why we do this at all: storing accounts isn’t free, and quietly clearing out truly abandoned ones is part of how we keep Harbor lean and the one honest plan affordable for everyone who’s actually here. But “lean” should never mean “we lost your notes without warning” — so before anything locks or is deleted, you get a long runway of reminder emails, and the moment an account does lock, a real person is one message away at help@harbor.my.

Been away a while and not sure where you stand? Email help@harbor.my and a real person will sort it out.