Frequently Asked Questions

Friends on File is a personal relationship manager. You log conversations with friends, and our AI extracts key details — job changes, family updates, upcoming trips — to build rich, always-up-to-date friend profiles. Next time you meet, you'll have personalised talking points ready.

Friends on File is a web application that works on any device with a modern browser — desktop, tablet, or phone. No app download required.

After chatting with a friend, open Friends on File and write a quick note about what you discussed. Write naturally — no forms or templates. Premium users can also use voice input to dictate their notes hands-free.

Talking points are personalised conversation starters generated by AI based on your friend's profile. Before your next meeting, you'll see suggestions like 'Ask about the Portugal trip' or 'Congratulate the promotion'. You can also create your own.

While Friends on File is designed for personal relationships, many users find it helpful for professional contacts as well. The AI extracts the same kinds of details — role changes, projects, interests — regardless of the relationship type.

Friends on File can add your birthdays, reminders, and time-sensitive talking points (like upcoming trips or appointments) directly to your calendar app. You subscribe once using a calendar link, and your calendar app pulls updates automatically. Apple Calendar typically refreshes every 5–15 minutes, while Google Calendar may take 12–24 hours to show new events. You can set up calendar sync in your account settings.

Yes! You can import WhatsApp chats directly into a friend's profile. In WhatsApp, open the chat, tap the menu (three dots) and select "Export chat" (without media). Then in Friends on File, go to the friend's profile, tap the + button and choose "Import WhatsApp". Select the exported .txt file and the app will automatically create conversations grouped by date. Our AI will then analyse the chat and extract facts, update the profile, and generate talking points — just like manually logged conversations.

The WhatsApp integration turns your entire chat history into a structured friend profile in minutes. After you import a .txt export, Friends on File groups messages by date into individual conversations and runs each through the same AI extraction pipeline as manually logged notes. Key facts — career updates, family news, travel plans, interests — are pulled out, organised by category, and staged for your review. Talking points are generated automatically. It's the fastest way to get a new friend fully up to speed in Friends on File.

Group chats are not supported in the current version. Friends on File works with one-on-one conversations to accurately map facts to the right person. In a group chat, reliably attributing details to the correct individual is difficult. Support for group chats is on our roadmap.

Imported WhatsApp messages are treated exactly like manually logged conversations — they are encrypted at the field level and stored only in your account. The AI processes them in an isolated, sandboxed environment and only sees the text you imported. Nothing is shared with third parties, and the same prompt injection protections apply.

Date Mode activates automatically when you set a friend's relationship type to 'Dating'. It unlocks specialised features: personalised green and red flags, AI-powered flag analysis on your conversations, pre-date topic suggestions, and an AI dating coach.

Green and red flags are personalised criteria you define for what you're looking for (or avoiding) in a partner. When you log a conversation with someone you're dating, AI analyses it against your flags and highlights matches — helping you spot patterns early.

The dating coach is a conversational AI that knows your dating partner's profile, recent conversations, and your flag history. You can ask it for advice, discuss how things are going, or get help planning your next date. It generates follow-up questions you can save as talking points.

Yes, all plans include Date Mode. Free users get 2 flags and 1 coaching session per month. Plus users get 10 flags and 5 sessions. Premium users get unlimited flags and coaching sessions.

Absolutely. The Free plan is fully functional with up to 5 friends and 10 conversations per month. No credit card required.

We offer three plans: Free (5 friends, 10 conversations/month), Plus (25 friends, 50 conversations/month, all reminders), and Premium (unlimited friends and conversations, voice input, data export, priority AI processing). See our pricing page for full details.

Yes. Upgrade instantly and your new features are available right away. If you cancel, your current plan stays active until the end of the billing period, then you'll move to the Free plan.

Your data is never deleted. If you exceed your plan's limits after downgrading, the extra data becomes read-only — you can still view it, but you won't be able to add more until you're within your plan's limits again.

Premium users can dictate their conversation notes using speech-to-text instead of typing. Audio is never stored — it's converted to text in real-time and only the transcript is saved.

Every Friends on File account requires mandatory two-factor authentication (2FA) using an authenticator app. There is no option to skip 2FA — it's required for all users, ensuring your account is protected even if your password is compromised.

All personal data is protected with field-level AES-256 encryption at rest. Every piece of personal content — friend details, conversation text, AI-generated profiles, and more — is individually encrypted before it reaches the database. Even if the database were accessed directly, the data would be unreadable without the encryption keys.

All data is stored in the EU, specifically in the Netherlands. This ensures compliance with European data protection standards and keeps your data under EU jurisdiction.

We use one-way cryptographic indexes for searching encrypted data. This allows you to search for friends and conversations without ever decrypting the underlying data during the search process — a technique that balances usability with strong privacy guarantees.

Your personal data is encrypted at the field level with keys managed through a dedicated secrets management service. The AI processes your conversations in an isolated, sandboxed environment and only sees scoped data — never your account identity. We follow the principle of least privilege throughout the system.

When you log a conversation, our AI reads your notes and extracts key facts — new jobs, family updates, upcoming trips, interests. It categorises them automatically and detects when multiple friends are mentioned. You review and confirm every extracted fact before it's saved to a profile.

No. Your data is never used to train AI models. Conversations are processed through the AI in a sandboxed, isolated environment strictly for extracting facts and building your friend profiles. No data is shared with third parties for training purposes.

Audio is never stored. Voice input is a pure pass-through — it's streamed to Google Cloud Speech-to-Text, converted to text in real-time, and only the text transcript is saved. The original audio is discarded immediately after transcription.

Premium users can export all their data. This includes friend profiles, conversation history, extracted facts, and talking points. We believe your data belongs to you.

When you delete your account, all your data is permanently deleted — including friends, conversations, profiles, facts, talking points, and reminders. This action is irreversible. There is no soft-delete or recovery period.

On Android, go to your phone's Settings → Apps → Friends on File → Storage → Clear cache. This removes temporary files and can help if the app behaves unexpectedly or feels slow. Your account data, friends, and conversations are stored on our servers and are not affected.

iOS does not give apps or users direct access to clear the cache. The system manages cache automatically and reclaims space when needed. If you're experiencing issues on iOS, the most effective reset is to delete the app and reinstall it from the App Store — your account data is safely stored on our servers and will be available as soon as you log back in.

No. Clearing the cache only removes temporary files stored on your device — things like images and preloaded content. All your friends, conversations, profiles, and settings are stored securely on our servers and are unaffected by clearing the cache.