The Trove — Terms of Service

Effective date: [LAUNCH DATE]

The Trove (“The Trove”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is operated by Niall McHale, trading as The Trove, a sole trader based in Cork, Ireland. Our postal address is available on request by emailing hello@thetrovecollective.app.

Contact: hello@thetrovecollective.app

1. Agreement

By creating an account or using The Trove, you agree to these Terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the service.

2. What The Trove is

The Trove is an app that lets you capture, organise and search passages from physical books you own, and earn ranks and titles based on the books and passages in your library. Features and content may change over time.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to use The Trove. By using it, you confirm you meet this requirement.

4. Your account

You’re responsible for keeping your login secure and for activity under your account. Please tell us promptly at hello@thetrovecollective.app if you suspect unauthorised access.

5. Plans, trial, pricing and billing

• Free: limited use (currently up to 2 books).
• 7-day free trial: full access for 7 days. We tell you at sign-up that the trial is finite. If you don’t upgrade, your account moves to read-only (see §6) — you keep your data but can’t add new books.
• Annual — €29.99/year: an auto-renewing subscription. It renews automatically each year at the then-current price unless cancelled before the renewal date.
• Prices include VAT where applicable. We may change prices with reasonable notice; changes don’t affect the current paid term. Payments are processed by Stripe; we never receive or store your full card details.

6. Read-only on lapse

If your trial ends or a subscription lapses, your account becomes read-only: you keep and can view all your books, passages, collections and earned titles, but cannot capture new books until you subscribe. We do not delete your content because a plan lapsed.

7. Your content

You keep ownership of the content you add (book records, captured passages, collections). You grant us a limited licence to store, process and display that content solely to operate the service for you. You’re responsible for having the right to capture and store the passages you add.

8. Acceptable use

Don’t use The Trove to break the law, infringe others’ rights, upload malware, attack or reverse-engineer the service, or resell/redistribute it. We may suspend accounts that do.

9. Third-party services

• Payments are handled by Stripe under Stripe’s terms.
• AI text capture (bring-your-own-key): The Trove uses your own Google Gemini API key to read text from the pages you scan. That processing happens through Google’s services under Google’s terms, which we don’t control. You’re responsible for your API key and any usage charges Google bills you.
• Hosting: the service runs on third-party infrastructure. We’re not responsible for third-party outages beyond our control.

10. Cancellation and refunds

See our Refund & Cancellation Policy, which forms part of these Terms and describes your EU right of withdrawal.

Refund abuse. The free trial lets you assess the service before paying. We may refuse or limit refunds, decline a purchase, or suspend an account where we reasonably believe the refund or withdrawal process is being misused — for example, repeatedly purchasing and reclaiming payment. This does not affect genuine statutory rights that cannot be excluded by law.

11. Availability

We aim to keep the service available but don’t guarantee uninterrupted, error-free operation. We may modify, suspend or discontinue features.

12. Disclaimers

Except for rights you have under law that cannot be excluded, the service is provided “as is” without warranties of any kind. We don’t warrant that captured text is accurate (AI recognition can make mistakes) or that the service will meet every need.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of data, or loss of profit, and our total liability to you is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law — including your statutory rights as a consumer, or liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

14. Indemnity

You agree to cover reasonable losses we incur from your misuse of the service or breach of these Terms.

15. Data protection

We handle personal data as described in our Privacy Policy.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms; we’ll post the new version with an updated date and, for material changes, give reasonable notice. Continued use means acceptance.

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Ireland, and the Irish courts have jurisdiction. As an EU consumer, you may also have the right to bring proceedings in your own country and to use the EU Online Dispute Resolution platform.

18. Contact

hello@thetrovecollective.app · The Trove · Cork, Ireland (postal address on request)