Terms of sale

What you agree to when you order the Apocalaptop download or a map drive from us.

Old books and a lamp. Photo by Jez Timms, via Unsplash.

Last updated November 11, 2026

These terms cover what you buy from apocalaptop.com: the Apocalaptop download and the Apocalaptop drive. When you place an order, you agree to these terms and to the policies they link to: Shipping, Refunds and returns, Limited warranty, Privacy and the Wilson safety note.

1. Who we are

Apocalaptop is a business of Xero Media LLC, a Missouri limited liability company.

2. Who can order

  • You must be 18 or older.
  • We sell only to buyers in the United States, and ship drives only to US addresses.
  • Orders are for your own household, not for resale. For a group or bulk order, email us.

3. Placing an order

  • Your order is accepted when we email you a receipt.
  • If we can't confirm a payment, or a price on the site was plainly wrong (a typo), we'll contact you. If it can't be sorted out, we cancel the order and refund you in full.

4. What you are buying

The product page lists what is in your order on the day you place it. That list is part of these terms.

  • The download ($99 a year): the Apocalaptop app with Wilson, the offline library and the maps, for a computer you already own, with a year of updates. One purchase covers Windows and Linux Mint. On Windows you run the installer. On Linux you use our Make a Linux USB program, install Linux Mint, then click Install Apocalaptop. The library and maps download after the app is installed, which can take many hours on home internet.
  • The drive: a USB drive with the same app and library already on it, so nothing big has to download. Plug it into a Windows computer, or a computer running Linux Mint, and click Install. If the computer doesn't have room, Apocalaptop runs from the drive. It comes two ways:
    • The US Map Drive ($149): 256 GB, with maps of every US state and DC.
    • The World Map Drive ($199): 512 GB, with the US maps and the whole world map.
  • Updates over the internet for the app, the library and the maps, included for one year from your purchase. When the computer is online, Apocalaptop updates itself unless you turn that off. If it never goes online, everything keeps working as installed.
  • After the first year. Download owners can renew for $99 for another year of updates. Renewing is your choice: we email you before your year ends, and nothing charges on its own. If you don't renew, everything keeps working as installed; it just stops getting updates.

What your computer needs: Windows 10 or 11, or Linux Mint, with 8 GB of memory and a USB port, and about 220 GB of free space for the full library with the US maps (about 360 GB with the world map), or the drive plugged in. The installer checks the computer first and tells you in plain words if it won't work, before anything is copied.

The books and maps come from the people who write them, not from us. We may replace a book or map with a newer edition, or swap an item for one that does the same job if the old one is no longer available.

5. What is not part of your purchase

  • Your computer, Windows and Linux Mint. Linux Mint is free software from the Linux Mint project, not ours. Our USB program downloads it from Mint's own servers. We support our app on Mint, not Mint itself.
  • Free add-ons. While you're online, the app can offer free extras such as school courses and repair guides. Each one downloads with your own click from its maker or the public library that publishes it, under its own license. We don't sell, host, own or support them, and they are not part of what you pay for. Their makers can change them or take them down at any time.
  • Internet or phone service.
  • Protection from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), a nuclear blast, lightning or power surges. We don't claim that the drive, your computer or our software is protected from these.

6. Installing Linux

Installing Linux replaces what's on that computer unless you pick “alongside Windows.” Back up first. We aren't responsible for files lost in the install.

7. Prices and tax

  • Prices are in US dollars.
  • Missouri doesn't tax downloaded software. Drives shipped to a Missouri address are charged Missouri sales tax. We add sales tax in other states once their law requires us to collect it.

8. Payment

  • You pay in full when you order. Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or keep your full card number.
  • The charge shows on your card statement as APOCALAPTOP.
  • Nothing renews or charges again on its own. A new year of the download is a new order that you choose to place.

9. Delivery

  • The download: as soon as your payment goes through, the page you land on has your Download buttons, and we email you a private link to your order page. The order page works until the order is refunded. Each Download button makes a fresh link to the file that works for 24 hours, and a stopped download picks up where it stopped. If the email doesn't come, or you lose it, email us and we'll send the link again.
  • My account: you can also get your downloads and updates at shop.apocalaptop.com/account. You sign in with a link we send to the email on your order, so anyone who can read that email can sign in. Keep your email safe, and don't share your sign-in or download links outside your household.
  • How long you can download: your order comes with a year of downloads and updates. During that year your order page offers the newest version. After it, your order page keeps offering the last version released during your year, so you can install it again on a new computer.
  • The drive: ships within 3 business days of your order, free, with tracking. See the shipping policy.

10. Refunds

See Refunds and returns. In short: if the download won't install or run on your computer and we can't fix it, you get a full refund within 30 days. A drive can come back within 30 days, unopened for any reason, or opened if it won't run, for a full refund.

11. Warranty

The drive comes with our 90-day Limited warranty: if it fails, we send a new one. Implied warranties (such as merchantability) on the drive last only 90 days, where the law allows.

12. The software

  • Your license. The Apocalaptop app, including Wilson, belongs to Xero Media LLC. When you buy it, we give you a personal license to use it, with the updates we publish, on any number of computers your own household owns, on Windows or Linux. You may not sell it, share it outside your household, or copy it for others.
  • The drive's license goes with the drive. If you give or sell the drive to someone else, the license goes with it, and you remove Apocalaptop from your own computers.
  • Open source programs. Many programs that come with Apocalaptop are open source, for example Kiwix, Piper, KeePassXC, VLC and llama.cpp. Each comes under its own license, listed on the About screen. Those licenses give you rights that nothing in these terms takes away. For programs under the GPL, the source code is on our download server, linked from the About screen and from our credits page.
  • The AI models Wilson uses come from their makers under their own licenses (mostly Apache 2.0 or MIT), listed on the About screen.

13. The library and Wilson's answers

  • The books, encyclopedias and maps were written by others (Wikipedia editors, the US Army, FEMA, the CDC, OpenStreetMap mappers and many more) under licenses that let us copy them. They are credited on the About screen. We didn't write them and can't promise every page is right, complete or current.
  • Wilson is an AI, a computer program. It reads the library and writes an answer, and it can be wrong. It isn't a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. Read the Wilson safety note before you rely on it.
  • The library is as current as its last update. Advice in it, like first aid steps, can change after that.

14. Other companies' names

Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Linux Mint is a trademark of the Linux Mint project. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Other names belong to their owners. Apocalaptop is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Microsoft or the Linux Mint project. We name them only to say what Apocalaptop runs on.

15. Limits on our liability

Where the law allows, Xero Media LLC's total liability arising out of or related to these terms or the product won't be more than the amount you paid for it, and we aren't liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages, including lost data or profits. Some states (including Missouri) don't allow some of these limits, so they may not fully apply to you. Nothing in these terms limits our liability for fraud, gross negligence, or personal injury caused by our negligence.

16. Export

Apocalaptop includes common encryption software (for example KeePassXC and the encryption in Important Papers). It is subject to US export control laws. You agree not to export, re-export or transfer it to any restricted country, destination or person as defined by the US government.

17. Disputes

  • Please contact us first at support@apocalaptop.com or by phone. Most problems can be fixed with one call or email.
  • These terms are governed by the laws of Missouri, except where your own state's consumer laws give you more protection.
  • You can bring a claim in small claims court, or in a court in the state where you live. There's no arbitration and no class action waiver.

18. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The terms posted when you placed an order apply to that order.

Contact

support@apocalaptop.com · (316) 285-0204 · 27103 E Cedar Grove Dr, Lee's Summit, MO 64086