FAQ

Straight answers.

What it is, what it isn't, and what happens to your data.

What this is

Start here if you are still working out what it does.

What exactly is a Personal OS?
One system that holds every part of your life instead of one slice of it. A task app knows about tasks. miya.life holds the car, the house, the warranties, the pets, the semester, the money and the day, and puts whatever needs you next on one screen.
Can I bring my old calendar in?
Yes. Settings, Data imports the standard .ics file that schools, teams, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar export. Weekly and monthly repeats come across as real repeats with their end dates; a pattern too unusual to carry imports as its first occurrence and the app says so before anything is written. Importing the same file twice never doubles anything.
Who is Miya?
Miya is one name for the whole thing: the Personal OS and the assistant inside it. The OS holds your life, all seventy-eight systems of it; Miya the assistant reads those systems live, writes your briefings, answers when you type or talk, and speaks when you ask.
Who's behind it?
miya.life is built and run by one person: Lewis De La Paz. It started as the tool he could not find anywhere, one place that holds a whole life instead of a slice of it, and he still writes every line of it. Staying small keeps it honest about what it does and does not do, and it means support replies come from the person who wrote the code.
Do I have to use all 78 systems?
No, and you shouldn't at first. Every system switches off and disappears, sidebar, dock, home screen, everywhere. Turn one on later and it's there, empty and waiting.
What is the AI actually doing?
Reading the system you're looking at, live, and answering about it: summarize this, what needs attention, or whatever you type or say. It writes your morning and evening briefings, builds your news editions with linked sources, and can search the web. It's included, no API key to bring, no per-question charge.
How does the voice assistant work?
Tap the mic once and talk. A pause sends what you said; the answer comes back spoken in a natural voice; the mic reopens by itself, so it's a conversation, not a dictation exercise. Start talking over it and it stops to listen. It runs on your device's speech engines in the browser, no smart speaker, no wake word, and it's off unless you start it.

The board and the interface

What you are actually looking at, and how much you can do without opening anything.

What does it actually look like when I open it?
It opens on a board. Every system you have switched on is a tile, grouped by area and colored by group, and most tiles tell you something before you open them: the next appointment, the task due today, the bill that is unpaid. You arrange it: drag tiles anywhere, resize them, put a whole group away, pin a clock or the weather, and mark the few you use daily as favorites. If you prefer the older side panel layout, Settings, Appearance, Interface switches back to Classic.
Can I do things without opening a system?
Yes, and that is the point. Type Ctrl K, or just start typing on the board, and you can pay a bill by name, add something to the shopping list, make a task, start a focus session, log a glass of water or jot a note. Tiles also carry their obvious action, so you can tick the top task off from the board itself. Everything you do this way can be undone from the message that follows.
What are rules?
Rules are the thing that makes seventy-eight systems behave like one. When a task is ticked, a bill is paid, something runs out of the pantry, or a warranty comes within sixty days of ending, a rule can make a task, add to the shopping list, or write a note. Each rule records what it made and where, never fires twice for the same record, and can be switched off at any time.

Living with it day to day

The questions that come up once you are actually using it.

Is the task side serious enough to be my only task app?
Yes. Projects, boards, sub-tasks, priorities, repeats, natural-language capture, and day, week and month calendar views with .ics import, built to replace a dedicated task app outright. The difference is the other 78 systems standing next to it, all reading each other.
Does it work in my language?
Yes. Write to Miya in any language and the answer comes back in the same one, with nothing to set first. The interface itself has a language switcher on every screen. Read-aloud picks a voice that matches the language of the sentence where your device has one, and changes voice mid-answer if the language does. What you write is stored exactly as you typed it: nothing is translated behind your back.
If something has a date, does it show in the calendar?
Yes, wherever you entered it. Bills, warranties expiring, vehicle services, policy renewals, contracts ending, invoices, exams, assignments, library books due back, trips starting and ending, savings targets, tax dates, vet visits, project deadlines and more all appear on the day, labelled with what they are, and open the system they came from. Birthdays repeat every year rather than appearing once.
Do Health and Workouts share the same training history?
They do. A session logged in Health appears in Workouts, and the other way round, and the routines are one shared set, so a routine you build in either place can be started from both. Starting one records what you actually did: the exercises, the weights, the reps and the time. Metrics then shows sessions, hours, average length, how often a week, a breakdown by kind of training, and each movement by name with your best and most recent weight.
Can it really handle school?
Yes, terms, classes with a schedule grid, nine kinds of assignments, exams, weighted grade categories, and a live GPA. Homework due soon shows up on the home screen with everything else that needs you.
Can I log food by taking a photo?
Yes. Meals takes a photograph of the plate, a scanned barcode, or typed text, whichever is quickest at the time. A photograph gives a best guess at the food and its calories, labelled as an estimate, and every figure stays editable before you save it. Calories count down from a cap you set and protein counts up to a floor, so the day reads as progress rather than a lecture.
Does it nag me about streaks?
No. A day counts when you actually did something, not when you opened the app, and two missed days in any month are forgiven quietly so one bad week does not wipe months of work. There are no warnings, no countdowns and no red badges for what is undone. The only things it says are true and said once: three days running, a week, a month, or “you moved 23 things along this week”, drawn from what you really did.
Is there help for the weeks I have never done before?
Twelve templates cover the ones nobody has practice at: moving house, a new baby, when someone dies, tax season, a new pet, a new job, your first place, buying a car, getting married, an operation, starting something of your own and going abroad. Each fills in your own systems with the tasks in the order things have to happen, the papers worth keeping and the dates. You see the whole of it before it happens, can switch off any part, and can undo the lot in one step.
Can I open a system with a keyboard shortcut?
Yes. Any tile’s menu has Keyboard shortcut: press a letter or a number and that key opens the system from anywhere in the app. A key can also run an action instead, like adding a task, starting a focus session or capturing a thought. Keys already in use are refused, and the app tells you what has them, so nothing quietly overrides anything else. It never fires while you are typing in a field.
Can I change how the board looks?
Tiles are rounded by default and can be square instead, from Appearance. Any tile can keep its family color or take one of twenty-eight of its own, which follows it into the system, its dock icon and its menus. Groups can be reordered by dragging them in the stepped-back view, put away when you do not need them, and the last dozen board changes can be undone one at a time.
Can I stop it interrupting me at night?
Yes. Set quiet hours once and nothing interrupts inside that window, reminders and alarms included. The window works across midnight, which is where most of them fall. Anything that would have interrupted is kept rather than dropped, and when the quiet ends you are told once that three things waited, instead of being woken by three of them.
What happens if I delete a list I have things in?
The things inside it are set loose, never deleted. A task whose list you delete lands in the Inbox and stays visible; a photo outlives its album. Each one remembers where it came from, so putting the list back gathers them up again.

Money

How Miya Money fits, and how paying for any of it works.

Is Miya Money included, or is it extra?
Included with every plan. Money is an application inside the application: open miya.life and it is one of the systems there, on the same sign in, so you never have to leave. It is also its own address at money.miya.life when you want the whole window. It stays a separate application underneath, which is why the two never disturb each other: this app keeps the day, Money keeps the position. Bank linking is an optional paid add-on there; with it off you import an OFX or CSV file you download yourself, or type figures in, so your bank credentials never come into it.
Does Miya Money connect to my bank?
Only if you ask it to. Bank sync is an optional paid add-on: it links through Plaid, reads transactions and balances, and can be cut at any time. With it off there is no bank connection at all, and you import an OFX or CSV file you download yourself, or type figures in, and everything works from there: budgets, debts with a payoff plan, cash flow, net worth. It means a little more effort at the start and one less place your bank credentials could ever end up.
How do my transactions get in, then?
Two ways. Download a statement from your own bank as OFX or CSV and import it, which most banks offer in a couple of clicks, or type things in as you go. Imports are matched against what is already there so the same transaction does not land twice, and everything imported becomes an ordinary record you can edit, categorise or delete.
How does billing work?
A 14-day free trial of everything, with no card. After that it's $9/month or $79/year, plus $8/month per additional user, on your own renewal date. Checkout and card storage are handled by Stripe; Settings → Billing opens your Stripe portal to update the card, switch plans, or cancel. If you stop, your account goes read-only rather than being wiped, and everything stays exportable. An unpaid account that is then never opened again gets three notices over five weeks before it is closed, and opening it once stops that.
Is my card safe?
Your card never touches our servers. Payment runs through Stripe, who handle the details end to end, so there is nothing here for anyone to steal.

Your files and your data

Where things live, who can see them, and how to take them away.

Where do the files I attach actually go?
They stay with the record you attached them to, and the Files system indexes all of them in one place, saying what each one belongs to and taking you there. There are no folders: a file belongs to a thing rather than to a path. Anything you add without filing sits in Unfiled until you say where it goes.
Can I store video, not just photos?
Yes. Photos takes clips as well as stills: record one on the spot or add one you already have, and it sits in albums, favourites and On This Day like any picture. You can send a clip in Talk too, wherever a photo goes. Files up to 64MB upload, roughly a minute of phone video, and they are kept in object storage rather than inside the record, so the app stays quick.
What happens to my files if I never come back?
If a trial ends and nobody signs in for two months, the uploaded files on that account are removed: photographs, video and documents. Everything you typed stays put, and stays exportable, so notes, tasks, habits and entries are not affected. We write to you at least a week before, name the date, and signing in once resets the clock. If you have ever held a paid plan, none of this applies to you.
Can I get my data out?
Yes, whenever, as a full export. A weekly backup is also emailed to you automatically, so a copy is already in your inbox. The export is the guarantee.
Where does my data live?
On the miya.life server, in your own isolated account. It isn't sold, mined, or handed to advertisers, and there are no third-party trackers on the app.
What do you do with my data?
Nothing. We do not read your records, mine them, sell them, or train anything on them. There are no ads and no third party trackers. Your records live on your own devices and sync to your account so your phone and laptop agree. You can export everything to a readable file whenever you like, and erase what is on a device in one step.
What about the sensitive systems, cycle, vault, the emergency card?
They're flagged sensitive: masked until you deliberately reveal them, and never included in shared groups. Files are streamed through an authenticated endpoint rather than a public link.
How is my account protected?
Two ways, both yours to switch on. Two-factor sign in adds a six digit code from your authenticator app on top of your password, with recovery codes in case you lose the phone, and turning it on signs every other device out. A PIN lock is there if you want it, so a borrowed laptop is not an open filing cabinet. Every account also confirms its email address before the free days start, which keeps the address that recovers your account one you actually read.

Devices, people and sharing

Phones, offline, and the people you share with.

Does it work on my phone?
Yes, it's built mobile-first and installs to your home screen on both iPhone and Android. Same login, same data as the desktop, and the mic works wherever the browser has one. It is the same app on both, laid out for each. On a phone the board stacks down the screen in two thumb-width columns, or you can swipe it sideways like a desktop. On a wide screen you can open a second system beside the first and drag the divider. If you leave something half done on one device, the other offers to pick it up.
Does it work offline?
Installed, yes. It opens without a connection, your records are there, and edits sync when you're back. The largest pictures and attachments stream from your account, so those want a connection. If two devices edited the same thing while apart, the newer content wins and you're told what was superseded.
How do I share this with my family?
Add them to your subscription at $8 a month each, or $79 a year each if you are on the yearly plan, charged on your own renewal date. Each person gets a whole account of their own: their own login, their own private systems, their own assistant replies and their own storage. Then you grant specific groups, sixteen of them, from shopping and calendar to pets, bills, trips and notes, to specific people, view-only or edit. Shared records show whose they are. Nothing else crosses over, and you can remove someone whenever you like.
Can I call someone, or only message them?
Both, from the same place. Talk holds the conversation and the call: a green handset answers, a red one hangs up, and either of you can end it. Group chats call too, voice or video for up to six people, and joining never switches your camera on for you. Every call leaves a record of who, which way round, how long and how it ended, which you can clear a line at a time or all at once. Nothing of what was said is kept, because none of that is ours to keep.

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