Terms of Service
Effective 27 September 2026
These terms cover your use of InkPGN: the website at inkpgn.com and its API, whether you use it yourself or through an app or AI assistant acting for you. By using InkPGN you agree to them. If you do not agree, please do not use it.
1. What InkPGN does
InkPGN reads a photographed handwritten chess scoresheet into moves and replays them on a board. After you confirm the moves, a chess engine picks the moments where the game turned and asks what you were thinking. It then writes a PGN file with your moves and your answers.
2. No account, and links
There are no accounts. Each game has an id that nobody can guess, and
the link https://inkpgn.com/#<id> is the only way back to
it. Anyone who has the link can see the game and its photographs, add or
change notes, and delete it. Share the link only with people you trust
with the game, such as your coach.
3. Your scoresheets
- Upload only scoresheets and photographs you have the right to share, such as your own games or sheets you have permission to use.
- You keep every right you have in your photographs, your games and your notes. You let InkPGN store and process them only as far as needed to provide the service to you: reading the sheet, analysing the game, and keeping it available at its link.
- A chess game's moves are facts. InkPGN claims no ownership of them, or of the PGN it produces for you.
4. What is kept, and where
- Photographs and games are stored on InkPGN's server in the United States (Google Cloud), next to each other, under the game's id. A nightly backup copy is kept on Google Cloud Storage in the same region.
- Handwriting is read by Google's Gemini API on a paid plan. Google does not use it to train its models. Nothing is sold, and nothing is shared with anyone else.
- Deletion. Deleting a game removes it, its PGN and its photographs from the server immediately, and from the backup within a week. A game nobody has opened or changed for 90 days is deleted the same way.
- Logs. To enforce the daily limit and see how the service is used, InkPGN logs when a sheet is read or deleted, with part of the connection's address: the first three parts of an IPv4 address, not enough to identify a household. Your full address is held in memory only for the day's limit.
- Analytics. Page views are counted by Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies. The site itself stores the list of your games in your browser, so that you can find them again; it sets no tracking cookies. Nothing follows you to other sites, so there is nothing for a browser's Do Not Track signal to switch off.
- No accounts means InkPGN does not know your name or email unless you write to us. If you do, we use your email only to reply.
To have a game removed that you cannot delete from the page, or to ask about your data, write to [email protected].
5. Fair use
- InkPGN is free, currently up to 20 photographed sheets a day per connection. Limits can change.
- Do not try to get around the limits, overload the service, reach games whose links you were not given, or upload anything unlawful, or anything that is not a scoresheet in order to use the reader for something else.
- For converting sheets in bulk, such as a whole tournament, write to us first.
6. The API, apps and AI assistants
The API is documented at /llms.txt and /openapi.json. The same terms apply to it. When an app or assistant uses InkPGN for you, it acts on your behalf, and you are responsible for what it does with your games. The engine's questions are meant for the player: an assistant should pass them on to you, not answer them for you. The API has no versioning promise and may change.
7. Check the result
Handwriting can be misread, and a misread move can still be legal. InkPGN flags every move it had to repair or doubts, but it cannot promise that every move is right. Check the moves against your sheet before relying on the PGN, for example for a rating report or an arbiter. Engine opinions are opinions.
8. No warranty
InkPGN is provided free, as is and as available, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose and accuracy. It may be unavailable at times, may change, and may be discontinued. Keep a copy of any PGN you care about.
9. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, InkPGN and the people who run it are not liable for any indirect, incidental or consequential loss, or for lost data, arising from your use of the service. Our total liability for anything related to the service is limited to one hundred US dollars. Some places do not allow these limits, and there they apply only as far as the law permits.
10. Suspension
We may block access from a connection or client that breaks these terms or puts the service at risk for others.
11. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute about them or about InkPGN will be heard in the state or federal courts located in California, unless the law where you live gives you the right to bring it elsewhere.
12. Changes
We may update these terms. The date at the top says when they last changed. For a change that matters, we will say so on the site. Using InkPGN after a change means you accept the new terms.