What Is DearDiary.Net?

DearDiary.Net is an online diary site which allows people to keep their diary online. It is intended that it be used more like a personal (but publicly available) diary rather than a blog, but there is no reason it can’t be used as a personal blog too.

Are Commercial Sites Allowed?

No. This is a personal diary site. Any commercial use of the site is considered to be spam and will be removed without warning.

Is DearDiary.Net Free To Use?

DearDiary.Net was free to use for the first 21 years of its operations but unfortunately at the present time it is no longer free to use. The level of support required to operate a site of this size safely and to provide timely and excellent support to our users is enormous. Particularly when something goes wrong. So, unfortunately we have to concentrate our efforts only on those people who are prepared to contribute just a little something every month to help keep us afloat.

Where Has My Diary Gone?

If your diary was last used prior to some time in 2016 then it’s likely that it is on what we call the ‘Legacy System’. The legacy system was originally written and released in 1999 and has not had a significant update since then. The legacy system is very very unstable as a result. The new DearDiary system is incompatible with the legacy system.

Since February 25th 2021, the system listed above has also become a ‘legacy’ system and a new system (which you are viewing this FAQ on) is in place. This new system currently has no way for you to automatically migrate and you will need to contact us using the menu at the top of the page to ask us to migrate your diary to this new system. Please bear in mind that you will need to be a Patreon Patron for us to migrate you to this new system.

Your diary data is not lost though, it will be viewable in a read only form for a long time to come on the new old system, which you can visit at https://www.deardiary.org instead.

How Does This Notification System Work?

There presently is no notification system in place for this new system. We will begin working on something along these lines very shortly.

How Do I Add Entries / Content?

If you don’t know how to use WordPress, there’s loads of tutorials available online. DearDiary.Net uses WordPress with various bespoke plugins to provide the specific DearDiary functionality. But most of it is standard WordPress. Here’s a link to an article showing How To Use WordPress for creating content.

If you get stuck, please Contact Us.