What we keep, and why

What we hold

Your email address, and your name if you give it. Your libraries: the books, shelves, places and notes you add. Your loans, with each borrower’s name, and their email if you add it. Saved versions of each library, so you can go back.

Who else handles it

Cloudflare runs the site, its robot check at sign-in, and its email. Stripe takes payments, and we never see your card. Your browser gets book details and covers from Open Library.

Shelf photos go to Google’s Gemini to be read. We don’t keep them. But on our current free plan, Google may use them to improve its products, and people there may look at them. So photograph only your books.

No ads, no selling

There are no ads and no trackers, and we don’t sell your data. When something breaks, we log the error without your email or your books.

Cookies and your device

We set one cookie, to keep you signed in for 30 days after your last visit. Cloudflare’s robot check may set its own while you sign in. Your browser also keeps your recent searches and a copy of your library, so it opens offline. Signing out clears that copy.

What we count

We count a few events, like adding a first book or lending one, to see whether Shelf Help is useful. We keep these counts ourselves.

Borrowers

People you lend to see your first name. A borrower gets reminder emails only if you add their email. Each reminder has a link to stop them. We remember that choice, so no library emails them again.

Export and delete

You can export each library as a spreadsheet or a JSON file at any time.

Deleting your account ends any billing at once, without a refund. It deletes your libraries, every saved version and your sign-ins straight away. We keep a note that the account existed, with its email, our billing records at Stripe, and the counts above. We also keep a scrambled form of your email, so a free trial can’t be taken twice.

The waitlist

We keep the name and email you give us until your place is ready. To be taken off, write to us.