Legal

Terms of Use

What you agree to when you use Time Portal — the iOS app, the web map, and this site. Written to be read, because terms nobody reads protect nobody.

Effective 19 August 2026 · Replaces the End User License Agreement of 3 March 2025

What you're agreeing to

These terms are an agreement between you and IE Pavel Ilin, an individual entrepreneur registered at Sairme 110a, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia — "we", for the rest of this page. They cover the iOS app Time Portal: Then & Now, the web map at map.timeportal.app, and this site. By using any of them you accept these terms; if you don't accept them, the only thing to do is not use Time Portal.

You get a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the app on Apple devices you own or control, within Apple's Media Services Terms and Usage Rules — Family Sharing included, where Apple enables it. The licence is for using Time Portal, not for copying it, taking it apart, or building something else out of it.

How we handle your data is its own document, the Privacy Policy — it is part of the deal described here.

The photographs

Time Portal is a window onto PastVu, a community archive of historical photography. The photographs belong to their photographers, archives, museums and the people who keep them — never to us, and we claim nothing. Time Portal shows them for personal, non-commercial viewing, with their year, their place and, where the archive records it, their source.

If you hold rights to a photograph and believe it should not appear here, write to [email protected] — we answer quickly, and the archive itself accepts reports at pastvu.com.

The map is rendered by Mapbox, with data © Mapbox and © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Your account

You don't need an account to browse. If you make one, treat it as yours alone: keep access to it, and don't lend it out. You can delete it in the app's Settings at any moment, and deletion is immediate. We can suspend or close an account used to break these terms, and will say why.

Free and Pro

The newer part of the archive is free: every photograph from a cut-off year onward — 1955 as this is written; the app always shows the current one. Pro opens the rest: all 2.3 million photographs back to 1826, every mode of the Then & Now camera, everything added to the archive later, and saving the oldest photographs to your library.

What Pro contains can grow and shift over time; what you paid for — the full archive, for the period you paid for — does not shrink.

Paying, renewing, cancelling

Pro comes as a monthly or yearly subscription, or as a single payment that lasts for good. Prices are set per country and shown where you buy, before you pay. One purchase covers the app and the web, as long as you are signed in with the same account on both.

In the app

Purchases made in the app go through Apple and are charged to your Apple Account. A subscription renews by itself: the charge for the next period lands within 24 hours before the current one ends, unless you cancelled at least 24 hours before the period's end. Manage or cancel any time in Settings → your name → Subscriptions on your device. If a free trial is offered, it converts into a paid subscription unless cancelled before it ends, and any unused trial time is forfeited the moment you buy.

On the web

Purchases at map.timeportal.app are processed by Stripe. The same logic applies: a subscription renews until cancelled; cancelling stops the next charge and keeps the current period running to its end. Cancel from the web app, or write to [email protected] — an email saying "cancel" is enough.

Refunds

App Store payments are refunded by Apple, under Apple's rules — start at reportaproblem.apple.com. For web payments, write to us. Statutory rights, including any withdrawal or refund rights of the country you live in, stay untouched either way.

If you bought Time Portal when it was a paid app

Long ago, Time Portal was paid up front. If your receipt says you bought it in that era, the full archive is yours for good, without any subscription. That promise predates these terms, and these terms keep it.

Fair use

Time Portal is built for a person with a map, not for harvest. Don't:

• scrape, crawl or bulk-download photographs or metadata — through the apps, the sites, or our servers;
• resell, republish or redistribute the content or the service;
• bypass or try to break the paywall, request signing, or device attestation;
• overload the service or interfere with anyone else's use of it;
• use Time Portal for anything unlawful.

Whatever mandatory law lets you do regardless of a contract — private copies, quotation, accessibility — is, of course, untouched.

What's ours

The apps, the sites, their design and code, and the Time Portal name are ours. These terms give you the right to use them, not ownership of any part of them. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely — gratitude implied, compensation not.

A service that changes

Time Portal is one person and a living archive. Features can change, be added, or retire. The archive grows and is curated by its community, so a photograph can move, gain a better date, or disappear. We work to keep everything running, and promise no uninterrupted availability — of the service, or of any particular photograph.

No promises about the past

Time Portal is provided as is. The historical record is crooked: dates are estimates, places are reconstructions, captions repeat what somebody once wrote down. We do not warrant that any photograph is accurately dated, located or attributed, nor that the service is free of errors. Don't rely on Time Portal for any purpose where a wrong year or a misplaced pin could cause real harm.

Liability

We are liable without limit where liability cannot lawfully be limited: for intent, for gross negligence, and for injury to life, body or health. If slight negligence breaks a duty these terms exist to protect, our liability is limited to the foreseeable damage typical of a service like this. Beyond that, to the extent the law allows, we are not liable — in particular not for indirect or incidental losses. Nothing in this section limits rights that consumer law gives you and does not let you waive.

If you got the app from the App Store

Apple requires this agreement to say the following — all of it true:

• This agreement is between you and us, not with Apple. Apple is not a party to it, and we — not Apple — are solely responsible for the app and its content.
• The licence above is limited to Apple-branded devices you own or control, under Apple's Media Services Terms and Usage Rules.
• Apple has no obligation to maintain or support the app; that is our job, at [email protected].
• If the app fails to meet a warranty, you may tell Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price. Beyond that refund, Apple has no warranty obligation whatsoever for the app.
• Claims about the app — product liability, legal or regulatory compliance, consumer protection and the like — are ours to address, not Apple's.
• If a third party claims the app infringes their intellectual property, we — not Apple — are responsible for handling it.
• You confirm you are not located in a country under a US Government embargo or designated as terrorist-supporting, and are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• You must comply with any third-party terms that apply when you use the app — your mobile carrier's, for instance.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of this agreement, and once you accept it, Apple may enforce it against you.

Ending things

You can stop using Time Portal at any time, and delete your account in Settings. We can end this agreement and your access if you materially break these terms. Sections that by their nature outlast the agreement — the photographs' ownership, liability, governing law — survive it.

Law

This agreement is governed by the law of Georgia, excluding its conflict-of-law rules. If you are a consumer, the mandatory protections of the country you live in remain yours, and a dispute can be brought where consumer law says it can. If one clause of these terms turns out to be invalid, the rest stand.

When these terms change

We may update these terms. The date at the top is when the current text took effect; material changes will be announced in the app or on the site before they apply. Using Time Portal after a change means accepting it.

Contact

[email protected]
IE Pavel Ilin · Sairme 110a, 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia

The other half of the paperwork: Privacy Policy.