Privacy Policy
The short version: your notes never leave your computer. Here is everything else, in full.
Effective 8 August 2026 · Applies to the Notefile browser extension and this website
At a glance
- Your notes are never sent anywhere. They are written as ordinary files into a folder you pick on your own computer.
- No analytics, no tracking, no advertising — the extension contains no such code.
- We never see your browsing history, the pages you visit, or the content of any page.
- The only data we receive is what licensing requires: an email address to start a free trial, and a license key plus a random install ID once you buy.
- We do not sell your data, and we never will.
1. Who we are
Notefile (“Notefile”, “we”, “us”) publishes the Notefile browser extension for Chrome, Edge and Brave on Windows and macOS. You can reach us at any time at notefile@mybrowsertools.com.
2. Single purpose
Notefile has one purpose: to let you write and organise notes in a browser side panel, saving each note as an ordinary file in a folder you choose on your own computer. Every permission the extension requests, and every piece of data described below, exists to serve that purpose and nothing else.
3. What stays on your computer
The following never leaves your device and is never transmitted to us or to anyone else:
- Note content — titles, body text, formatting, tags, folders and file names. These are written directly to the folder you select, using the browser's File System Access API, as
.txt,.docxor.mdfiles. - Your folder location and its contents. The handle that lets the extension reopen your folder is stored locally in the browser's IndexedDB. We never receive it.
- Captured screen regions and recognised text. The “capture area as text” feature takes an image of the region you select and runs optical character recognition on it. The recognition engine is bundled inside the extension and runs entirely on your machine. Neither the image nor the resulting text is uploaded.
- Your preferences — theme, design, layout, sort order and similar settings — stored in the browser's local extension storage.
If the folder you choose happens to sit inside Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or iCloud Drive, then that service — not Notefile — copies those files between your devices, under its own privacy policy. Notefile performs no synchronisation of any kind.
4. What we receive, and why
Notefile is a paid extension with a 30-day free trial. It makes network requests to exactly one place: our licensing server. That server exists solely to answer two questions — “has this email already had a trial?” and “is this license key valid?”. Here is everything it receives and stores.
| Data | When | Why | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email address | When you start a free trial | To send you a 6-digit verification code, and to ensure each address receives only one trial | Kept while the trial record exists, so a second trial cannot be claimed on the same address. Deletable on request once the trial has ended. |
| Verification code | When you request a trial code | To confirm the address is really yours | Stored only as a cryptographic hash, never as the code itself. Deleted the moment it is used, and expires after 10 minutes. |
| IP address | When a trial code is requested | Rate limiting only — to stop the code-sending endpoint being abused to send mail to strangers | Automatically deleted after 1 hour. Never linked to note content or to your browsing. |
| License key | On activation and on periodic re-checks | To confirm the license is valid and not refunded or revoked | Kept for the life of the license. |
| Purchase email | Supplied by our payment processor with the license | To let you recover your license if you lose the key | Kept for the life of the license. |
| Random install ID | On activation and re-checks | To enforce the 3-device limit on a license | Kept while that install remains activated. See below. |
About the install ID
The install ID is a random value generated the first time the extension runs. It is not a hardware fingerprint, contains no information about you or your computer, cannot be linked to any other install, and is discarded when you uninstall the extension. Its only function is to count how many devices a license is in use on.
5. What we never receive
For the avoidance of any doubt, Notefile does not collect, transmit, or have any means of accessing:
- The content of any note, or any file in your notes folder
- Your browsing history, the URLs you visit, or the content of pages you view
- Images you capture, or text recognised from them
- Keystrokes, clipboard contents, form data, passwords or credentials
- Your location, contacts, health information or personal communications
- Payment card details (see Third parties below)
- Any analytics, telemetry, usage statistics, crash reports or advertising identifiers — the extension contains no such code
6. Permissions, and why each is needed
Chrome asks you to approve a set of permissions when you install. Each one is used only as described here.
| Permission | What it is used for |
|---|---|
sidePanel | To show the notepad in the browser's side panel — the extension's entire user interface. |
storage | To remember your preferences and cache your license status so the extension keeps working offline. |
activeTab, scripting | To draw the selection overlay on the current page when you start a text capture, and to show the optional floating quick-note button. |
contextMenus | To add the “Capture area as text” item to the right-click menu. |
offscreen | To run text recognition in a background document so the browser stays responsive. This runs locally. |
Access to websites (<all_urls>) | Required by Chrome for two features that can work on any page you choose to use them on: capturing a region of the visible tab as text, and the optional floating quick-note button. Notefile does not read, collect or transmit page content — the captured image is processed on your machine and discarded. This broad permission is unfortunately the narrowest one Chrome offers for capturing the visible tab; it is not used to monitor your browsing. |
7. Third-party services
We use a small number of providers, strictly to operate licensing. None of them receives note content, because note content is never sent to us in the first place.
- Cloudflare — hosts the licensing server and its database.
- Payhip — processes purchases. When you buy a license you complete checkout on Payhip's own site, under their privacy policy. Card and payment details go to Payhip and their payment providers; we never see or store them.
- Emailit — delivers trial verification code emails.
- Hostinger — hosts this website.
We do not use advertising networks, analytics providers, or data brokers.
8. Legal basis and your rights
Where the GDPR or similar laws apply, we process the limited data above on the basis of performing our contract with you (providing a licensed product) and our legitimate interest in preventing abuse of the free trial.
You may ask us to access, correct, export or delete the data we hold about you by writing to notefile@mybrowsertools.com. We will respond within 30 days. Note that deleting an active trial record may end that trial, and deleting a license record will deactivate the license — we will always tell you before doing either. Your notes are unaffected in every case, because they are yours and are stored only on your own computer.
9. Data security
All communication between the extension and our licensing server uses HTTPS. Verification codes are stored only as cryptographic hashes. The volume of personal data we hold is deliberately tiny — an email address, a license key and a random ID — which is itself the strongest protection we can offer: there is very little to lose.
10. Chrome Web Store disclosures
In accordance with the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements, we confirm that Notefile:
- does not sell user data to third parties;
- does not use or transfer user data for purposes unrelated to the extension's single purpose;
- does not use or transfer user data to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes;
- does not allow humans to read user data, except where required for security purposes, to comply with applicable law, or with your explicit consent (for example, if you send us information yourself while requesting support);
- collects only the minimum data required to operate its trial and licensing, as itemised in section 4.
11. Children
Notefile is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has provided us an email address, write to us and we will delete it.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will update this page and change the effective date at the top. Continuing to use Notefile after a change means you accept the updated policy.
13. Terms of use
Using Notefile is also governed by our Terms of Service — the license you're granted, what's expected of you, and what happens if a license lapses.
14. Refunds
All sales are final. Because every feature is free to try for 30 days before you pay anything, Notefile operates a no-refund policy — set out in full on the refund policy page.
15. Contact
Questions about this policy, your data, or a deletion request:
notefile@mybrowsertools.com — we usually reply within a few hours.