Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-09-27

BetterLinks is a read-it-later app built to keep your data yours. Your library lives in your own Google account and on your own devices — we operate no backend that stores or has access to it. The one exception is a small relay used only during browser-extension sign-in, described under “Third parties” below. This policy explains exactly what is stored, where, and who can see it.

Who controls your data

You do. BetterLinks stores all of your content in the private appDataFolder of your personal Google Drive. This is a hidden, app-scoped folder that only the BetterLinks app (signed in as you) can read or write. We — the developers — never receive, see, or store a copy of it.

What we store, and where

In your Google Drive appDataFolder:

Saved links and their metadata (title, description, domain, image URL, read / starred / archived state, reading progress, tags).
Tags and link↔tag associations.
Highlights, highlight notes, and highlight colors.
RSS/Atom feed subscriptions.
Your preferences (theme, accent, reader font, speech rate, AI provider choice, summary language), automatic rules and saved filters.
Your AI provider API keys, if you add any, so your other devices can use them. Like everything here, they are readable only by BetterLinks signed in as you, and never sent to us.
Extracted article content (bl-article-<id>.html) and cached article images so articles are readable offline and across your devices. This includes reading copies you choose to save with Save reading copy in the app or the browser extension, which are taken from the page as it is shown to you. In the app, the website opens inside BetterLinks so you can answer its cookie prompt or sign in; the page is read only when you tap Save, and only its article text and images are stored.
Imported PDF and EPUB files, so they can open across your devices.
Translated copies of PDFs and EPUBs you choose to translate (the original is kept unchanged).

On your device only:

A local SQLite cache mirroring the above for offline use.
Cached article images and PDF/EPUB documents in the app's private storage for offline reading.
Your authentication tokens and your AI provider API keys, kept in the device's secure storage (iOS Keychain / Android Keystore). Your API keys are never sent to us; they are used only to call the AI provider you chose.
Translations of articles you translate, so you can reopen them.
If you turn on Obsidian sync, your highlights are written as notes to the folder on your device that you choose, and nowhere else.
Notification preferences (whether the reading reminder is on and when, and which feeds send new-article alerts).

Permissions we request

Google Drive (drive.appdata scope) — to store and sync your library in the private app folder described above. We request no access to the rest of your Drive.
Google account email & profile (openid email profile) — to show which account you're signed in as.
Notifications (optional) — for the reading reminder if you turn it on, new-article alerts for your feeds (Pro), a progress notice while a translation you started runs, and a notice when it is ready. All are generated and scheduled locally on your device.

Third parties

Google processes your sign-in and hosts your Drive data under Google's Privacy Policy. When you save a link from Google News, the app asks Google News for the publisher's address of that story, so the real article is saved.
AI providers (optional) — if you use AI summaries, Q&A or translation, the text of the article or document you act on, plus your request, is sent directly from your device to the provider you selected (Google Gemini, Groq, Mistral, Cerebras, OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Moonshot/Kimi, or DeepSeek) using your own API key. Their handling of that data is governed by their respective privacy policies; some free tiers (Gemini outside the EU/UK, Mistral's free plan, OpenRouter's free models) may use or log prompts, which the app's settings point out. If you don't use AI, nothing is sent.
Readwise (optional, Pro) — if you connect your Readwise account, your highlights (their text, your notes, and the article's title and address) are sent from your device to Readwise with the access token you provide, under Readwise's privacy policy. The token stays in your phone's secure storage. Disconnecting stops it; highlights already sent stay in your Readwise account.
Translation and summaries on your phone (Android) — when your phone translates an article or document, or (on phones with Gemini Nano) summarizes one, no AI key is needed and the text never leaves the device: it is processed by Google ML Kit on the phone. The language packs it needs are downloaded from Google once. As with all ML Kit features, Google may receive basic technical information (device model, OS and app version, performance and error metrics) under ML Kit's terms; never the text.
Read aloud — uses your phone's own text-to-speech voices. Voices whose name says “needs internet” are synthesized by your phone's speech engine (for example Google's) online; all others run entirely on the device.
Play Store rating — the app may occasionally show Google Play's own rating sheet. Google handles it; we never learn whether or how you rated.
Article extraction fallback (optional) — when on-device extraction fails, the article URL may be sent to a public reader proxy (r.jina.ai) to retrieve readable text. This happens only as a last resort.
Browser extension sign-in relay — the browser extension's Google sign-in passes a one-time authorization code (or refresh token) through a small relay we operate, which forwards it to Google's own token servers and returns the result. It does not log, store, or inspect the tokens or your account data — it exists solely because a browser extension cannot securely hold the credential needed to complete this exchange directly. Nothing else about your library passes through it.

Google Play (purchases) — if you buy BetterLinks Pro, the payment is handled entirely by Google Play under Google's Privacy Policy. We never see or store your payment details, and there is no server of ours involved. Your device asks Google Play whether the purchase exists and caches only the answer — a yes/no flag — locally. Nothing about the purchase is written to your Drive or sent anywhere else.

We do not use analytics SDKs, advertising SDKs, or third-party trackers, and we do not sell or share your personal data.

Deleting your data

You can erase everything at any time from Settings → Delete All Data. This removes your BetterLinks files from your Google Drive appDataFolder, wipes the local cache and cached files on your device, cancels any scheduled reminders, and signs you out. Because there is no server-side copy, this deletion is complete.

You may also revoke BetterLinks' access entirely from your Google Account permissions.

Children

BetterLinks is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes

We may update this policy as the app evolves. Material changes will be reflected by the “Last updated” date above.

Contact

Questions or requests? Email utilsandmore@gmail.com.