Frequently asked questions

Final Capsule is a digital legacy service. You write messages, letters, voice notes, photos, videos, addressed to the people who matter to you. We store them, and we only deliver them once we have strong evidence that you are no longer with us. The whole point is simple: a message prepared today, delivered when it matters most.

Anyone who wants to leave a trace: a parent writing to children, a patient preparing for a difficult diagnosis, someone travelling into a risky situation, or simply a person who does not want to carry important words to the grave. You decide who reads what, and when.

No, and never mistake it for one. Final Capsule delivers messages, not assets. It does not handle inheritance, property, notary acts, or any formal testamentary disposition. For those, consult a notaire or the equivalent authority in your jurisdiction. Think of Final Capsule as the emotional, personal layer that sits next to a legal will, not instead of it.

Final Capsule is operated by an independent team. You can reach us at contact@finalcapsule.com. Legal information is available in the Terms of Service.

No. You can create an account, write your first message, and configure Confidants and SafeGuards on the free plan, no credit card required. If you later need more capsules, large attachments or longer retention, a one-time Lifetime upgrade unlocks those features.

Three things, and all three are mandatory: at least one Confidant (recipient of a message), at least one SafeGuard (a trusted person who can confirm your status), and at least one capsule written and saved. Without these three, the verification cycle is skipped and nothing can ever be delivered, by design.

Yes. A single person can occupy both roles, and you can even list your own email address as both a SafeGuard and a Confidant if you want a self-check system. That said, we strongly recommend at least one person other than yourself so that the SafeGuard step actually serves its purpose.

Writing a first capsule, adding one Confidant and one SafeGuard takes about five minutes. You can refine everything afterwards at any moment.

We use a two-stage verification cadence with built-in redundancy. First, a dormant phase where we do nothing except wait (the length is the check-in interval you set, default 12 months). Second, an alive-check phase where we email you up to three times, once every seven days, each with a one-click confirmation link. Third, a SafeGuard phase: if you have not responded after three reminders, we email each of your SafeGuards up to three times, once every seven days. Finally, delivery: capsules are delivered either when a SafeGuard explicitly confirms your passing, or automatically after three unanswered SafeGuard rounds.

With the default 12-month dormant interval, the minimum is roughly 12 months + 6 weeks: the dormant year, three weekly reminders to you, three weekly reminders to your SafeGuards, and only then automatic delivery. If a SafeGuard confirms your passing earlier, delivery happens immediately after that confirmation.

Yes, from the Settings page. Shorter intervals are useful if you are in a high-risk situation; longer ones are fine for normal life. The minimum is usually 1 month, the maximum several years. Changing the interval never shortens a check-in already in progress, it only affects the next cycle.

The cadence is deliberately generous. Between the dormant phase and the three alive reminders, you have weeks of buffer before any SafeGuard is even contacted. If you know you will be unreachable, simply click any alive-check email before you leave, that resets the counter, or ask a SafeGuard to reply that you are fine if we contact them.

Death wins. The moment any SafeGuard confirms your passing, delivery is triggered, even if another SafeGuard already replied that you were fine. This is a deliberate safety rule: the risk of a premature delivery because of a mistaken SafeGuard is, in our view, far smaller than the risk of never delivering because one well-meaning SafeGuard was out of touch.

No problem. Clicking the alive-check link simply resets the cycle. If you later become unreachable, the cadence starts over at the next dormant expiry.

Yes. From the dashboard, a single button refreshes your status and pushes the next check-in date forward by one full interval.

Text (any length), and, on the Lifetime plan, attachments such as photos, videos, voice memos, PDFs and other files. Each capsule has a title, a body, one or more Confidants, and optionally attachments.

On Lifetime, individual attachments can reach several hundred megabytes. Exact limits are shown in the upload dialog and may evolve over time.

Common image formats (JPEG, PNG, HEIC, WEBP), video (MP4, MOV, WEBM), audio (MP3, M4A, OGG, WAV), documents (PDF). We validate file types using both extension and magic-byte signature, so renaming a file will not let it through.

Yes, any time, until it is delivered. Text, title, attachments, recipients: everything is editable from the dashboard.

Yes. Deletion is immediate and unrecoverable. Once deleted, the capsule is gone, from our primary storage and from all backups within the standard retention window.

Not currently. All capsules are delivered when the verification process determines you are no longer active. Date-based scheduling is not part of the core product.

A Confidant is someone you choose to receive one or more of your capsules after your passing. They do not need a Final Capsule account. All they need is an email inbox.

No. Confidants are never contacted before delivery. Your intentions remain private until the very moment the capsules are sent. This is by design, many users want their messages to arrive as a genuine surprise or a final gesture.

Yes. As long as they have an email address, geography does not matter.

There is no hard limit. Each capsule may have its own set of Confidants, independently of others.

FinalCapsule records the delivery attempt. If an email bounces, we recommend keeping confidant email addresses up to date in your Contacts. You can update them at any time before your capsules are delivered.

A SafeGuard is a person you trust to tell us, if ever we need to ask, whether you are still with us. SafeGuards are contacted only after you have stopped responding to your own alive-check emails. They are the last line of human verification before delivery.

If you miss three alive-check reminders, each SafeGuard receives an email explaining their role and offering a single secure page with two buttons: 'They are fine' (resets the cycle, no capsule is sent) and 'Confirm their passing' (triggers immediate delivery of all capsules to all Confidants). The confirmation page includes a second screen for the death button to prevent misclicks.

No. Everything happens through a unique, time-limited token in the email link. No account, no password, no software.

At least one is required; we recommend two to four. More than one gives the system redundancy if someone is unreachable; too many may cause confusion.

No. SafeGuards never see the content of your capsules. They only confirm your status. Access to the messages is strictly limited to the Confidants you have designated for each capsule.

After three unanswered rounds (roughly three weeks of SafeGuard silence on top of the prior three weeks of your own silence, on top of the dormant year), capsules are delivered automatically. This guarantees the service fulfils its purpose even when your SafeGuards cannot be reached.

Yes, you can add or remove SafeGuards at any time from the Contacts page. If your capsules are already in the SafeGuard confirmation phase, the updated list will be used for any remaining confirmation attempts.

By email, from our infrastructure, to each Confidant separately. Text is included in the body of the email. Attachments are delivered as secure download links that remain valid for seven days after delivery.

Not yet. You can see the title and recipients of each capsule from the Messages page. A full preview feature is on the roadmap.

We do everything technically possible to ensure delivery, but, as with any email service, we cannot guarantee that an external mail server, a full inbox, a spam filter, or an unreachable recipient will accept the message. Final Capsule offers a best-effort notification service, not a legally enforceable delivery contract. See the Terms of Service for the full disclaimer.

The message is marked as attempted, and the delivery is logged in our system. We do not automatically retry indefinitely. If you have several Confidants on a capsule, others still receive it normally.

No. Once the verification process has reached the delivery step, the process is considered irrevocable. This prevents a compromised account from being used to stop a legitimate delivery.

Every connection is encrypted in transit (TLS). Data at rest is stored on encrypted volumes. Passwords are hashed with a modern one-way algorithm. Infrastructure is hosted in the European Union with strict access controls and regular backups.

Our policy is to not access user-generated content. Technically, operational staff have the ability to read data required to run the service (for example during an abuse investigation or a legal request). We are transparent about this rather than promise zero-knowledge encryption we would not actually implement. If you want stronger protection, encrypt sensitive content yourself before uploading.

2FA is on the roadmap. In the meantime, use a strong, unique password and a reputable password manager.

Under GDPR, any personal data breach likely to result in risk to users is notified to the competent data protection authority within 72 hours and, where the risk is high, to affected users directly.

Security is a continuous process. We perform regular internal audits and address findings promptly. External audits are performed at our discretion.

No. Your data is never sold, rented, traded, or exposed to third-party advertising networks. The service is paid for by users, not by advertisers.

The full set: access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection. You can delete your account and all associated data from the Settings page. For a full data export request, contact us at the email listed in the legal notice. For any other request, write to contact@finalcapsule.com.

On servers located in the European Union. Subprocessors (email delivery, payment processing, object storage) are selected for their GDPR compliance.

Only strictly necessary cookies for authentication and session management. No tracking cookies, no advertising cookies, no analytics pixel that profiles individuals.

Primary data (capsules, contacts, attachments, verification tokens) is deleted immediately. Residual data in backups is overwritten within a standard retention window (typically 30 days). After that point, no personal data remains.

Account, capsule creation, text messages, Confidants, SafeGuards, the full verification and delivery engine, and GDPR export / deletion tools. No credit card needed.

A higher number of capsules, attachment uploads (photos, videos, audio, PDFs), larger storage quotas, and priority support. It is a one-time payment, billed once, not a subscription.

Lifetime refers to your use of the service for as long as the service exists. It is not a perpetual obligation binding future operators of the platform. In the unlikely event that Final Capsule is discontinued, we will provide advance notice and an export of your data; beyond that, Lifetime does not create any right to a monetary refund. This is detailed in the Terms of Service.

Lifetime upgrades are non-refundable once the plan has been activated. No general statutory withdrawal right applies to digital services performed immediately with your consent; mandatory consumer protections of your country of residence are reserved where applicable.

€79 is a considered price that reflects the real, ongoing cost of running a service you pay for once but that we operate forever. Behind every capsule is a stack that runs 24/7: a VPS server in the EU, a PostgreSQL database, S3-compatible object storage (Garage) for your encrypted attachments, and transactional email delivery via Resend (billed per message sent, including every check-in, alive-check, and delivery). On top of that, a cron job verifies your status every day, indefinitely. Unlike a subscription model where revenue keeps pace with costs, a lifetime deal means we absorb years of infrastructure costs from a single payment. €79 is the price point we calculated to make the service financially sustainable without compromising on privacy, reliability, or the promise that your capsules will be delivered when they matter most. The current launch price of €49 is a temporary offer while the service is new.

Major credit and debit cards via Stripe. No card data transits or is stored on our own servers.

We take continuity seriously, but we cannot promise eternity. If the service is ever discontinued, we commit to: (a) giving users reasonable notice via email, (b) providing a data export so you can move your content elsewhere, and (c) ceasing any further billing. We do not commit to finding a successor platform, carrying out posthumous deliveries after shutdown, or offering monetary compensation beyond what consumer law strictly requires. Please treat Final Capsule as a useful tool, not a lifelong guarantee.

Final Capsule is a best-effort notification facilitator, not a common carrier of communications or a licensed fiduciary. Our liability is expressly limited by the Terms of Service, which you accept on registration. In practice, we deliver reliably; but the legal framework is clear about the limits of our responsibility.

You do. You retain all intellectual property rights on the content you create. You grant Final Capsule only the narrow licence required to store, transmit, and deliver your capsules as you have configured them.

No. Final Capsule accounts are personal and non-transferable. We do not recognise heir access requests as a basis for releasing credentials. Your Confidants receive exactly what you prepared, nothing more. For broader estate matters, consult a legal professional.

The Terms are governed by the law of the Operator's place of establishment, with exclusive jurisdiction of the competent ordinary courts at that seat, without prejudice to mandatory consumer protection rules in your country of residence. Full details in the Terms of Service.

Check your spam folder, then add contact@finalcapsule.com to your trusted senders. From the dashboard you can also request a fresh verification email. If the issue persists, contact support.

Deletions are immediate and irrecoverable. This is intentional, it protects you from an attacker who would want to hold recovery hostage. Re-create the capsule from your own backup if you had one, or from memory.

The link is time-limited and single-use. If it has expired, simply wait for the next round of reminder emails or ask the user to trigger a new round from the dashboard. Support cannot reissue a SafeGuard token manually, by design.

Email contact@finalcapsule.com. We answer in English, French or German, typically within a few business days.