Getting started

Forestorers is a private journal for foreskin restoration. It runs entirely in your browser, works offline, and needs no account. Nothing is uploaded to a server. This guide walks you through your first week: making an entry, timing a session, tracking photos, reading your progress, and, if you want it, connecting with a buddy. You can do as much or as little of this as you like.

There is no sign-up and no password to forget. Your journal lives on your device. That also means you are responsible for keeping a backup, which we cover at the end.

What this tool is, in one minute

A journal. Log your restoration over time: coverage, sessions, devices, photos, notes.
Private by design. Data stays on your device. There is no cloud account and no tracking. If you connect with a buddy, that link is end-to-end encrypted directly between your two devices.
Offline-first. Once loaded it keeps working with no internet. You can even download a copy and run it from a folder.
Yours to leave. Export your whole journal to a file any time, and delete everything from the device in one tap.

Step 1: Your first journal entry

Open the app and go to Journal, then add a new entry. An entry is a snapshot of where you are on a given date. The two things worth setting on day one are the date and your Coverage Index.

The Coverage Index (CI) is a simple 0 to 10 scale for how much of the glans your skin covers, from fully exposed to fully covered with overhang. It is the single most useful number to track because it is what actually changes as you restore. If you are not sure which number fits you, the Coverage Index guide shows each level with a description.

Everything else on the entry is optional and can be filled in whenever it is useful to you:

Sessions: the percent of days you tugged or retained, and rough hours per day.
Devices: what you used, chosen from a list. New to devices? See the devices overview.
Photos: front, left, and right. These stay on your device (more below).
Notes, supplements, and BMI if you want to keep track of them.

Save it, and you have your baseline. The point of a first entry is not to be complete, it is to mark where you are starting from.

Step 2: Time a session from the dashboard

The Dashboard has a timer for tugging and one for retaining. Tap start when you begin a session and stop when you finish, and the app keeps a running record of your time under tension. Retaining, keeping the skin forward between tugging sessions, is tracked separately because it also counts toward progress. If you want the reasoning behind time under tension, the science page explains why hours matter more than force.

You do not have to use the timers to benefit from the journal. Some people prefer to log a rough daily total on the entry instead. Both work.

Step 3: Track photos privately

Progress is slow and hard to see day to day, which is exactly why photos help. You can attach photos to a journal entry, or build up a Gallery of them over time. Photos never leave your device unless you deliberately share one with a connected buddy.

Two features make photos more useful than a random camera roll:

Perspective tags. Tag a gallery photo as front, underside, or a left or right side view. The app can then line up the same view across months so you see the change in one strip.
Alignment guide. When you tag a view, an on-screen guide helps you frame each new photo the same way, so your lineups compare like with like.

Step 4: Watch your progress

Once you have a few entries, two views bring them to life:

Timeline. Your Coverage Index and session numbers plotted over time, plus automatic lineups that stack your tagged photos oldest to newest. Scroll a lineup and every perspective moves together so you can watch the transition.
Compare. Put any two photos side by side, line them up, and optionally highlight what changed. Good for a then-and-now.

Restoration is measured in months and years, not days. The timeline is there to show you the slope, which is encouraging precisely when the day-to-day feels flat.

Step 5 (optional): Connect with a buddy

Everything above works alone. If you want company, you can connect with a buddy for encouragement and to compare notes. This part is entirely optional and built privacy-first.

Adding a buddy. Each of you has a buddy code. Add each other's code, and your devices find one another automatically when you are both online. The connection is direct and end-to-end encrypted; forestorers.org never sees your data.
You control what they see. By default a buddy sees your basic progress stats. Journal photos and gallery photos are shared only if you switch that on for them, per buddy. You can change it any time.
Trust is mutual. Full journal history unlocks only when both of you trust each other.
Messages. Chat lives on the Messages page. Like everything else, messages are encrypted between the two of you.

Two settings matter for sharing photos with a buddy: turn on photo viewing for that buddy in their permissions, and, if you have set up at-rest encryption, your buddy needs it on too before your photos will send to them. This protects your photos from sitting unencrypted on someone else's device.

Step 6: Keep your data safe

Because your journal lives on your device and not on a server, a backup is your safety net. Two habits cover you:

Export a backup. From the app you can export your entire journal, photos included, to a single file. Do this occasionally and keep the file somewhere safe. If you switch phones or clear your browser, you import that file and you are back.
Optional encryption. You can set a password to encrypt your journal at rest on the device, so it is protected even if someone gets your unlocked phone.

You can also delete everything from the device in one action whenever you want. It is your data, fully under your control.

Where to go next

New to the whole idea? Start with the Coverage Index and the science of how skin grows.
Choosing a method or device? See the devices overview and the safety guide first.
Have a specific question? The FAQ covers the common ones.
Want reputable further reading and communities? The resources page collects them.

This page is educational, not medical advice. Restoration is a slow personal project and results vary. For pain, injury, or any medical concern, see a qualified healthcare professional.