Privacy Policy

Anchor is made by Adam Beeson, trading as AEHB Studio (“we”), postal address — to confirm, Spain. For anything about your data, email hello@aehbstudio.com. We are the data controller for the small amount of personal data described here.

Everything you save — links, titles, notes, tags, collections, and the page text Anchor extracts for search — is stored in a database file on your Mac, in your user’s Library folder. It is not uploaded, synced or backed up anywhere by us. We cannot see it, and if you delete the app and that folder, it is gone.

• To the sites you save. After you save a page, Anchor fetches it once to read its title, description and icon. That request goes straight from your Mac to that site, identifying itself as Anchor. It is the same as you visiting the page; nothing passes through us.
• Link checking, only when you ask. The Review page can check whether saved links still work. It contacts each site directly, and only after you press the button, which tells you how many sites it will contact first.
• Update checks. About once a day the app asks anchor.aehbstudio.com whether a newer version exists, sending the app’s version and build. It sends nothing about you or your library. We count these checks to know roughly how many copies are in use and which versions they run — see how we count. You can switch automatic checks off in Settings → General.
• Usage stats, only if you switch them on. See usage stats below.
• Feedback you send. If you use Send Feedback…, your message goes to us with the details described under feedback.
• Licence renewal (paid versions only). If you have a subscription key, the app sends that key to our server every few hours so it can be renewed while your subscription is active. The key contains the email and order number from your purchase. During free early access no key exists and nothing is sent.

The app contains no advertising or third-party tracking code, and no third-party analytics or crash-reporting service.

When someone downloads Anchor or a copy checks for updates, our server records the event with: the date and time, the app version (for update checks), the country (worked out from the IP address by our host, then the address is thrown away), the referring website’s name and any campaign tag in the link (for downloads), and the browser or updater family (“Safari”, “Sparkle”).

We never store IP addresses. To tell one visitor or copy from another within a single day, we store a short fingerprint made from the IP address and browser string mixed with a random secret created for that day. Each day’s secret is deleted within two days, after which a fingerprint can’t be reversed, matched across days or traced back to you. To stop abuse of our forms we also count requests per IP address for a few minutes at a time, again only as a fingerprint made with that day’s secret, and delete those counts within a day.

Anchor asks once, in the welcome window, whether you’d like to share usage stats (no personal info), and you can change your answer at any time in Settings. If you say no, nothing in this section is sent. If you say yes, once a day the app sends:

• a random install ID created on your Mac. It is never linked to your email address, your licence, a sign-up or anything else that could identify you — we keep those in separate places and never join them;
• Anchor’s version and build, your macOS version, processor type (Apple silicon or Intel), Mac model and language setting;
• how many days since Anchor was installed;
• the rough size of your library as a range (for example “100–499 bookmarks”), never what’s in it;
• whether the browser extension is paired, which theme and launcher shortcut you use, and your licence state (free, trial, subscribed);
• counts since the last report of: launcher opens, searches, bookmarks opened, saves (from the extension, by hand, and of files), imports, library window opens and link checks.

It never includes a search, a web address, a title, a note, a tag, a file name or anything else you’ve saved or typed. With stats switched on, the update check also includes the same system details (macOS version, processor, Mac model, language) through our updater’s standard system profile.

Switching stats off stops all of this immediately, and the app asks our server to delete the records held under its install ID. Copies that stop reporting are deleted after 13 months. We use these numbers only to understand how Anchor is used and what to improve.

The extension talks only to the Anchor app on the same Mac, over a local connection — never to us or anyone else. To show whether the page you’re on is already saved, it checks the current tab’s address against your library on your Mac; you can turn that off in the extension’s options. It stores its pairing token and any saves waiting for the app in Chrome’s local storage on your computer. Website icons come from your browser’s own cache, not from an outside service.

The site sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. It is hosted by Vercel, whose servers keep standard request logs (IP address, browser, page requested and time) for security and to keep the site running; Vercel keeps these briefly and acts on our behalf as a processor.

We use Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights to see which pages are visited, where visitors come from (referring site, country, device type) and how fast pages load. Both are cookieless and give us totals, not individual visitors: Vercel identifies a visit with a hash of the request that is discarded after 24 hours.

If you ask to be emailed about new versions, we store your email address, where you signed up (for example “pricing page”), and when you signed up, confirmed and, if you do, unsubscribed. We also keep the exact consent wording you saw and when you agreed to it, as a record of your consent. You’re only added once you click the link in the confirmation email, and signing up is never needed to download or use Anchor. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link. We send these emails through Resend, which processes your address on our behalf only to deliver them. We never sell, share or rent the list.

Feedback sent from the app or the website is stored with: your message, the kind of feedback you picked, where you sent it from, and — from the app — Anchor’s version and your macOS version (plus your install ID only if usage stats are on). Your email is stored only if you add it, and used only to reply.

The counts, usage stats, email list and feedback are stored in a database run by our database provider (Supabase or Neon, EU region), which acts as our processor.

• Individual download, update-check and usage-stats records: deleted after 13 months.
• Daily totals made from them (for example “42 downloads on 3 March”): kept indefinitely; they contain nothing about any individual.
• Email sign-ups you never confirmed: deleted after 30 days.
• Email list: until you unsubscribe.
• After you unsubscribe: we keep only your address and the date you left, marked as unsubscribed, solely so we can make sure we never email you again.
• Feedback: two years after you send it.
• Support email: two years.

Anchor is free during early access. When paid plans exist, payments are handled by Paddle, who act as the seller (merchant of record). Paddle collects your name, email, billing country and payment details under its own privacy policy; we never see your card number. Paddle shares with us your email, name, country and order details so we can issue and renew your licence. We email your licence key using Resend, which processes your email address only to deliver that message.

If you email us, we keep the conversation so we can help you and refer back to it. We delete support email older than two years unless it’s part of an ongoing issue.

Under the GDPR, for each thing we do:

• Anonymous download and update-check counts, website analytics, server logs: our legitimate interest in keeping Anchor and this site working and secure, and in knowing roughly how many people use it.
• Usage stats and the email list: your consent. You can withdraw it any time — switch stats off in Settings, or use the unsubscribe link — and withdrawing doesn’t affect anything before it.
• Feedback: your consent when you choose to send it, and our legitimate interest in replying and improving Anchor.
• Licences and support: performing our contract with you.
• Purchase records: legal obligations (tax).

You can ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to how we use it, or to receive it in a portable format. Email hello@aehbstudio.com and we’ll reply within a month. You can also complain to the Spanish data protection authority, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, or the authority where you live.

Anchor isn’t aimed at children under 16 and we don’t knowingly collect their data.

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we’ll update the date at the top and say so in the release notes. See also our Terms and Legal notice.