Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

NeedTools is a free collection of file, image, text, developer and marketing tools available at needtools.app. This policy explains what happens to your data, feature by feature, in the plainest terms we can manage. If anything here is unclear, write to us at support@needtools.app.

2. Tools that run entirely in your browser

Most NeedTools utilities process your file locally, using your own device. Nothing is uploaded and nothing reaches us. This includes merging, splitting, rotating, organising and removing PDF pages, adding page numbers, converting PDF pages to images, image compression and conversion, and all of the text, developer and utility tools such as JSON formatting, hashing, Base64, colour and timestamp conversion, QR generation and the UTM builder.

For these tools, closing the tab is enough to erase the data. We never receive a copy.

3. Tools that send your file to our server

Some jobs are impossible in a browser, so these tools upload your file to our processing server over an encrypted HTTPS connection:

• OCR (making a scanned PDF searchable)
• PDF compression
• Password protecting a PDF
• Server-side PDF text editing
• Conversions between PDF and Word, Excel, PowerPoint and TIFF, and Office documents to PDF

Your file is held only for as long as the conversion takes, and the result is returned to your browser. We do not build a library of your documents, we do not read them, and we do not use them to train anything. If a job fails, the temporary copy is discarded the same way.

Please do not upload material you are not allowed to share with a third-party processor. If your document is subject to strict confidentiality rules, use one of the browser-only tools in section 2 instead.

4. Accounts

You can use NeedTools without an account. Creating one simply lifts the daily limits and lets you save your work. Accounts are hosted on Appwrite, and we store your name, your email address and a securely hashed password. We never see or store your password in readable form.

If you sign in with a social provider instead, we receive your name and email address from that provider. We do not receive your social account password.

We use your email address to sign you in and, if necessary, to contact you about your account or a serious problem with the service. We do not sell it and we do not send marketing mail you did not ask for.

5. Short links, QR codes and bio pages

When you shorten a link we store the destination address, your chosen alias, an optional title, the account that created it, the creation date, and an expiry date if you set one. If you protect a link with a password, only a hash of that password is stored.

When somebody clicks one of your links we increase a counter and record a daily aggregate row containing the date, a country code, a broad device type such as mobile or desktop, and the referring website name. We deliberately do not store the visitor IP address, the full browser user agent string, or any identifier that would let us follow one person between clicks.

A dynamic QR code is simply an image of one of your short links, so it follows exactly the same rules.

Bio pages and splash pages are public by design. Anything you put on them, including your display name, photo, description and links, is visible to anyone with the address.

6. Tracking pixels that you add yourself

NeedTools does not run advertising or analytics pixels of its own on your behalf. However, the Tracking Pixels tool lets you attach your own Meta, Google Analytics 4 or TikTok pixel to your own bio pages and splash pages.

When you do that, those third parties receive data about the people who visit your pages, under their own privacy policies and outside our control. For those visitors you become the party responsible for the data, which means you are the one who must provide the required notice or consent in your region, for example a cookie banner under GDPR. Please only add pixels you are entitled to use.

For security, a custom pixel may only point to an external script file over HTTPS. We do not allow arbitrary script code to be stored and run on our domain.

7. API keys

If you create an API key, we store only a cryptographic hash of it, along with the first few characters so you can recognise it in a list, the name you gave it, and when it was last used. The key itself is shown once, at creation, and cannot be recovered afterwards, not even by us.

8. Your browser storage

We use your browser localStorage for conveniences that stay on your own device: your dark or light theme choice, your recently used and pinned tools, your daily usage counters when you are not signed in, your recent UTM links, and any call-to-action overlays you design. Clearing your browser data removes all of it.

9. Keeping the service usable

To stop automated abuse, our processing server counts recent requests per network address in memory for a short window. This is used only to slow down floods, is not written to a database, and disappears when the server restarts. Our hosting providers also keep their own standard access logs, as any web host does.

10. Service providers

We rely on a small number of providers to run NeedTools: Appwrite for accounts and data storage, and our hosting platforms for the website and the file-processing server. They process data on our instructions in order to provide the service. We do not sell, rent or trade your data to anyone.

11. Your choices and your rights

You can use almost everything without an account. You can delete any link, QR code, bio page, splash page, campaign, pixel or API key at any time from your dashboard, and deleting a link removes its click statistics as well.

To ask for a copy of your data, a correction, or deletion of your whole account, write to support@needtools.app from your registered address and we will act on it.

12. Children

NeedTools is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly create accounts for them. If you believe a child has registered, tell us and we will remove the account.

13. Changes to this policy

When we add a feature that changes what we store, we update this page and move the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will say so clearly rather than quietly editing the text.