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Privacy policy

Last updated: 2026-10-13

Short version: the Pastebird app does not collect, send or sell any data about you or your clipboard; it only checks GitHub for updates, and when it updates, this website counts that an update happened. Everything stays on your computer. This website counts visits anonymously on its own server, without cookies.

The Pastebird app

• What is stored. The items you copy (text with its formatting, links, file paths and images), the text Windows or macOS recognizes in those images, the time they were copied and your settings. The text recognition built into Windows and macOS runs on your computer; images are not sent anywhere.
• Where. Only on your own pc, in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Pastebird. The history, including images and formatting, is encrypted with Windows DPAPI for your user account, so other accounts and other computers can't read it. On a Mac it is in ~/Library/Application Support/Pastebird, encrypted with a key that is kept in your Keychain and never leaves your Mac.
• What is skipped. Content that password managers mark as private, and very large items.
• Network: only updates. Once a day the app asks GitHub whether a new version is available. When you choose to update, it downloads the new version through pastebird.app/update.php, which counts that an update happened from your version to the new one (only those two version numbers are stored, nothing else) and passes the download on to GitHub; the app checks the download against the fingerprint (SHA-256) GitHub publishes. Nothing about you or your clipboard is sent; GitHub and this website's server see your IP address, as with any website, but this website does not store it, and GitHub's privacy statement applies to GitHub. You can turn the check off in Settings; the Microsoft Store version doesn't do it at all. Apart from that count of updates there is no account, no telemetry, no analytics and no crash reporting. Links in the About screen open in your browser only when you click them.
• Your control. Delete single items or the whole history at any time, or let Pastebird remove items after 1, 7 or 30 days. Uninstalling removes all stored data.

This website

• This website sets no cookies and uses no third-party analytics, trackers, external fonts or advertising.
• Visitor statistics. To see how the website is used, it keeps its own statistics on this server: the page, the website you came from (for a few public sites such as Reddit, Hacker News and AlternativeTo also the page there, when your browser sends it), campaign tags in the link, browser, operating system, device type, screen width, browser language, time zone, the country, region and city (looked up from your IP address in a database on this server; often the location of your internet provider rather than your own), time on the page, how far you scroll, which buttons and links you click (such as Download) and how fast the page loads and responds in your browser. Your IP address is not stored. To count unique visitors, a code is derived from your IP address and browser that changes every day and can't be traced back to you, so visits on different days can't be linked. Sometimes we show half of the visitors a different version of a text, to learn which one is clearer; which one you see follows from that same daily code, so no cookie is needed. The data is not shared with anyone and is kept as long as it helps to improve the website. We do this based on our legitimate interest in improving the website.
• Opting out. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, or blocks JavaScript, no statistics are collected.
• Like any web server, the hosting provider may keep standard server logs (such as IP address and requested page) for security and operation. These are not used to identify or profile visitors.
• Downloads are served by GitHub, or by Microsoft when you install from the Microsoft Store; their privacy statements apply to those requests. Donations are handled by Ko-fi under their own privacy policy. Ko-fi passes the name you give, your message and the amount on to this site, so the developer can see and thank supporters; your e-mail address is not stored.
• Contact form. When you send a message with the contact form, your name, e-mail address and message are e-mailed to the maker of Pastebird, only to answer you; the website itself doesn't keep them. To stop spam, the website keeps for one day a code derived from your IP address (with a secret key, so it can't be traced back to your address) and one derived from the message, to limit how many messages can be sent and to skip a message sent twice. We do this to answer you and based on our legitimate interest in keeping spam out. E-mails are kept as long as needed to help you; ask and we'll delete them.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Use the contact form or open an issue on GitHub.