Privacy Policy

We collect information you provide directly, such as account details, links or QR codes you create, and messages you send.

We do not upload or store files you process in tools. File processing happens in your browser. Tool usage itself collects no personal data; if you choose to submit a rating or feedback, we store that rating and any message you write with it.

All core utility tools (including PDF Merge, PDF Splitter, Image Compressor, Image Resizer, JSON Formatter, Spine Viewer, and Texture Packer) run entirely client-side inside your browser sandbox.

No Server Uploads: Your files are processed locally. They are never uploaded, transmitted, or saved on our servers.

Zero Retention: File buffers in memory are deleted immediately when you close the tab. We do not store any of your document content or graphical assets. This local-first architecture is designed to support privacy-by-design workflows and data-minimization requirements.

When you edit text in the PDF Editor or PDF Workstation and neither ToolBuddy's built-in fonts nor the fonts on your device can draw it, we ask before downloading a matching font. Nothing is downloaded unless you choose Download this font or Always allow on this device; Always allow is remembered in this browser only and can be cleared with your browser's site data.

With your permission, the font is requested from jsDelivr (Fontsource) by font name, then from Google Fonts if needed. The Google Fonts request includes the font name and the distinct letters needed to draw your text, without their order, so the font can be cut down to just those characters. As with any web request, these providers receive your IP address and browser details. Your file itself never leaves your device.

We respect your digital rights and follow the ePrivacy Directive (EU Cookie Law) and PECR standards.

Necessary services stay on for consent storage, authentication, session integrity, security safeguards, minimal first-party page-view measurement, and Mixpanel telemetry for page views, tool usage, product events, service health, and error diagnosis. Only Google Analytics and Marketing are optional and stay off until you enable them.

GDPR Ready: privacy-first controls, consent management, deletion workflows, and vendor governance are designed to support GDPR requirements. Final compliance depends on your organization's implementation and use. We also configure telemetry to avoid direct PII capture and disable Mixpanel IP storage.

How to verify our privacy in 30 seconds: Open your browser's Developer Tools (F12 or Inspect Element) and navigate to the Network tab.

Drag a file into any ToolBuddy utility tool (such as the Image Compressor or PDF Splitter) and process it.

Observe the Network tab. You will see that no request uploads your file or its contents: the file never leaves your browser. The only requests you may see are small product-telemetry events (such as which tool ran and whether it succeeded) and any advertising on the page; none of them carry file data.

Healthcare (HIPAA): Because ToolBuddy never sees, stores, or transfers your documents, healthcare professionals can use our tools to crop, organize, or merge files containing Protected Health Information (PHI) while remaining fully HIPAA-compliant.

Education (FERPA): Educational administrators and teachers can securely modify student records or class rosters. Student data remains locked on the local device, ensuring complete FERPA compliance.

ToolBuddy does not require sign-up or registration to access any of our core utility tools.

We collect no personal information (names, emails, physical addresses, phone numbers) from any user, including children under 13.

We use your data to operate tools, secure accounts, detect abuse, and improve reliability and performance.

We use privacy-bounded Mixpanel telemetry as a necessary service to understand aggregate product usage, reliability, and feature performance. When optional analytics settings are enabled, Google Analytics may provide additional aggregate traffic insights.

Necessary cookies and first-party signals support consent storage, login, session integrity, security features, minimal page-view measurement, and necessary Mixpanel telemetry for page views, tool usage, product events, service health, and error diagnosis.

Optional categories are limited to Google Analytics and third-party advertising services (such as Google AdSense), which may use cookies to serve personalized or contextual advertisements.

We partner with third-party advertising networks — Google AdSense and Adsterra — to display advertisements on ToolBuddy. The two networks are kept on separate parts of the site: Google AdSense serves our articles, guides, and other written pages, while Adsterra serves our tool pages, the homepage, and the tool directory. No single page serves both networks. These third-party vendors and ad networks use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to ToolBuddy or other sites across the internet.

Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visits to ToolBuddy and/or other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings (https://www.google.com/settings/ads) or through aboutads.info (https://www.aboutads.info/choices/). Learn more about how Google uses information from sites that use their services at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Adsterra serves the advertising on our tool pages, including a banner unit and an on-page notification bar. Adsterra and its demand partners may use cookies, device identifiers, and similar technologies to select and measure the ads you see. You can review how Adsterra handles data, and the choices available to you, in the Adsterra privacy policy at https://adsterra.com/privacy-policy/. You can also limit interest-based advertising through your browser settings or through aboutads.info (https://www.aboutads.info/choices/).

Client-Side File Privacy: Your files are processed in your browser and are never sent to us or to our advertising partners, and we never pass your files, documents, or results to advertising code. Advertising code does run on the page alongside our tools, as on any ad-supported website. The PDF Editor and our dedicated on-device AI tools show Google AdSense only and send no product telemetry.

We do not sell your personal information. Aside from standard third-party advertising partners described in our Advertising section, we do not share data with third parties.

We may share limited data with trusted service providers that help run infrastructure, analytics, and support operations. For example, to estimate the country, region, and city of a visit for aggregate statistics, our server may send the visitor's IP address to an IP-location service (ipapi.co, or ipwho.is as a fallback) when our network provider has not already supplied that location.

We apply technical and organizational safeguards to protect your data.

We retain data only as long as necessary for service operations, legal obligations, and abuse prevention.

You can update account details, request deletion, and manage cookie preferences at any time.

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA) and similar regional frameworks, residents may exercise rights to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. For privacy requests, contact us and we will respond according to applicable law.

For privacy concerns, data requests, or policy questions, contact our team.

Use the Contact page and include enough detail so we can verify and process your request quickly.