A journal is personal. The things you write — the unfinished thoughts, the raw feelings, the quiet reflections — those are yours. They deserve a door that closes. Not a vault. Just a door.

Why a Lock Screen Belongs in a Journal

You share your phone with someone for a moment. You leave your laptop open at a coffee shop. A friend borrows your tablet. In all of these situations, your journal is one tap away from being seen. Not by hackers. Not by corporations. By the person sitting next to you.

That's the threat model. Not espionage — proximity. Not surveillance — curiosity. Most people don't need encryption. They need a closed door.

opennotepad's lock screen is that door. A simple 4-digit PIN that stands between your words and anyone who happens to open the app.

How It Works

Setting Up

Open Settings. Tap Lock Screen. Enter a 4-digit PIN. Confirm it. That's it. No email. No account. No recovery questions. No biometric setup. Just four numbers you choose.

What Happens on Load

The next time you open opennotepad, a clean lock screen appears. No hints. No username fields. No branding noise. Just a calm prompt: enter your PIN. Four digits, and you're in. Get it wrong, and a quiet message tells you so. No dramatic shaking. No alarm sounds. Just a gentle “Incorrect PIN.”

Turning It Off

Go back to Settings. Tap Lock Screen. Enter your current PIN to confirm. The lock is removed. Your journal stays exactly as it was. No data is ever deleted or moved.

What This Is — and What It Isn't

We want to be honest about what this feature does and doesn't do.

It Protects Against Casual Access

If someone opens your browser and navigates to opennotepad, they'll see a lock screen instead of your notes. That's the protection. It's designed for the most common privacy scenario: someone who has physical access to your device.

It's Not Cloud Security

Your PIN is stored locally in your browser. It's hashed — never saved as plain text — but it lives on your device. If you clear your browser data, the lock goes away. If you switch browsers, there's no lock on the new one. This is device-level privacy, not account-level security. And that's by design.

No “Forgot Password” Flow

There's no reset link. No email recovery. No secret questions. Because there's no account. If you forget your PIN and clear your browser data, the lock resets — and your notes remain untouched in localStorage. Nothing is ever destroyed.

The Design Choices Behind It

Calm, Not Scary

Most lock screens feel like a warning. Red borders, shaking inputs, countdown timers, aggressive “too many attempts” messages. That's not the feeling you want when you're about to journal.

Our lock screen is calm. A simple lock icon. “Welcome back.” Four input boxes. A quiet error if you get it wrong. After three wrong attempts, a gentle pause — not a lockout warning. The tone is: take your time.

Optional, Not Suggested

The lock screen is never promoted. There's no onboarding prompt saying “Protect your notes!” with an urgent button. It sits quietly in Settings under Privacy. If you want it, it's there. If you don't, you'll never know it exists.

Honest Copy

We don't use words like “secure,” “encrypted,” or “military-grade.” The setting simply says: “Protect your notes on this device.” That's what it does. Nothing more, nothing less.

Privacy Without Complexity

There's a tendency in software to equate privacy with complexity. End-to-end encryption. Zero-knowledge architecture. Multi-factor authentication. These are important tools — for certain problems.

But for a personal journal that lives in your browser, the problem is simpler. You just want to know that if someone else opens your laptop, they won't see your words. A 4-digit PIN solves that. Cleanly. Quietly. Without asking you to understand cryptography.

Privacy doesn't have to feel heavy. Sometimes it's just a door that closes softly.

Read more about our approach to privacy in journaling without signup or explore how Write & Throw gives you a space for thoughts that don't need to stay.