Privacy Policy

1. Summary

• Your documents stay on your device. PDF editing, merging, splitting, compression, conversion and OCR run in your web browser. We do not receive, store or read the files you open.
• No account is required. You can use every tool without signing up.
• We use analytics and advertising. We use Google Analytics (through Google Tag Manager) to understand how the site is used, and Google AdSense to show ads on our blog and guides. These services use cookies and similar technologies, described below.
• We only receive personal details you choose to send, such as your name and email address when you use the contact form or subscribe to updates.
• We do not sell your personal information for money. You can opt out of personalized advertising at any time.

2. Who we are

PDFEditly (“PDFEditly”, “we”, “us” or “our”) operates the website at pdfeditly.com, its free online PDF tools, its blog, and the PDFEditly Android app (together, the “Service”). PDFEditly is operated by its founder, Irfan Ullah Baig, from Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. For privacy purposes, we are the controller of the personal information described in this policy.

This policy explains what information is collected when you use the Service, how it is used and shared, and the choices you have. It should be read together with our Terms of Service.

3. Your PDF files and images

When you open a PDF or image in one of our tools, the file is loaded into your browser’s memory and processed on your device using in-browser technologies such as JavaScript and WebAssembly. Edited files are generated on your device and saved by your browser when you download them.

• We do not upload your files to our servers, and we cannot see their contents.
• Closing or refreshing the browser tab discards the file from memory.
• Passwords you enter in Protect PDF are used only in your browser to encrypt the file. We never receive them, which also means we cannot recover a forgotten password.
• The first time you use optical character recognition (OCR), your browser downloads language data files from a content delivery network. Only the language data is downloaded; your document is not sent.
• The “Recent files” list stores the names of files you processed, the tool used and the time, in your browser’s local storage. It never contains file contents, is not sent to us, and can be cleared at any time by clearing your browser’s site data.

4. Information we collect

4.1 Information you provide

• Contact form: your name, email address and message, so we can reply to you.
• Newsletter and updates: your email address, if you choose to subscribe.
• Emails you send us: any information you include in correspondence.

4.2 Information collected automatically

When you visit the Service, we and our service providers automatically collect:

• Device and browser data: browser type and version, operating system, device type, screen size and language settings.
• Usage data: pages visited, tools opened, links clicked, referring website, time spent on pages, and whether you visited from the website or the Android app.
• Approximate location: country or city, derived from your IP address.
• Log and performance data: IP address, request times, error information and page-load performance metrics, collected by our hosting provider to deliver and secure the site.
• Edit counter: when you save an edited PDF, your browser sends a random one-time session ID so we can update the “PDFs edited” total shown on the homepage. No file name, file content or account information is sent. To limit abuse, we keep a one-way hash of your IP address combined with the current hour for up to one hour; it cannot be turned back into your IP address.
• Cookie and advertising identifiers: identifiers stored in cookies or similar technologies by Google Analytics and Google AdSense, as described in sections 7 and 8.

4.3 Information we do not collect

We do not collect the contents of your documents, account passwords (there are no accounts), payment card details, or sensitive categories of personal information. If you support the project through Buy Me a Coffee, that payment is handled entirely by Buy Me a Coffee under its own privacy policy.

5. How we use information

• To provide, operate and maintain the Service and its features.
• To respond to your messages and support requests.
• To send updates you subscribed to; every email lets you unsubscribe.
• To understand how the Service is used, measure performance and fix problems, so we can improve our tools and guides.
• To display advertising on our blog and guides, which helps keep the tools free.
• To detect, prevent and respond to fraud, abuse, security incidents and technical issues.
• To comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

6. Legal bases (EEA, UK and Switzerland)

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we process personal information on the following legal bases:

• Consent — for non-essential cookies, analytics and personalized advertising, where consent is required. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Legitimate interests — to operate, secure and improve the Service and to reply to messages, where these interests are not overridden by your rights.
• Performance of a contract — to provide the Service you request.
• Legal obligation — where we must process information to comply with the law.

7. Advertising and Google AdSense

We use Google AdSense to display advertisements on our blog and guide pages. Google and its partners act as third-party vendors and use cookies and similar technologies to serve ads and measure their performance.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
• Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
• You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google’s Ads Settings. You can also opt out of some third-party vendors’ use of cookies for personalized advertising at aboutads.info (United States) or youronlinechoices.eu (Europe).
• If you opt out, you will still see ads, but they will be less relevant to you. Non-personalized ads may still use cookies for frequency capping, aggregated reporting and fraud prevention.
• Visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent through a consent message before personalized ads are shown, in line with Google’s EU User Consent Policy.

Learn more about how Google uses information from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites and about advertising cookies at policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

Our PDF tool pages do not display ads. We never use the contents of your documents for advertising or any other purpose.

8. Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small text files stored by your browser. Similar technologies include local storage, session storage and pixels. We use the following categories:

• Strictly necessary and preferences (set by PDFEditly, stored only in your browser): your light or dark theme, the Recent files list, and whether you are using the website or the Android app. These are required for features to work and are not used for tracking.
• Analytics (Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager): cookies such as _ga and _ga_* that distinguish visitors and measure usage. They typically last up to two years.
• Advertising (Google AdSense and its partners, on blog and guide pages): cookies and identifiers used to serve, personalize and measure ads and to prevent fraud. Their names and lifetimes are set by Google and its partners.
• Performance (Vercel Speed Insights): anonymous page-load measurements used to keep the site fast. This does not use cookies to identify you.

Managing cookies: you can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and opt out of personalized ads as described in section 7. You can prevent Google Analytics from using your data with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. Blocking cookies does not stop the PDF tools from working.

9. Third-party service providers

We use the following providers to run the Service. Each processes data under its own privacy policy:

• Google (Analytics, Tag Manager, AdSense) — usage analytics and advertising. Google Privacy Policy.
• Vercel — website hosting, content delivery, server logs and performance insights. Vercel Privacy Policy.
• Resend — delivers emails from the contact form and newsletter sign-ups. Resend Privacy Policy.
• Sanity — hosts our blog content and images. It does not receive information about you beyond standard request data when images load. Sanity Privacy Policy.
• Buy Me a Coffee — the optional support widget, which loads its own scripts and fonts (including from Google Fonts). Buy Me a Coffee Privacy Policy.
• Content delivery networks (such as jsDelivr) — deliver open-source libraries and OCR language data to your browser. They receive standard request data such as your IP address.

10. How information is shared

We share personal information only:

• With the service providers listed above, to operate the Service on our behalf.
• With advertising partners, as described in section 7, subject to your choices and consent.
• When required by law, court order or governmental request, or to protect the rights, property or safety of PDFEditly, our users or the public.
• In connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, in which case this policy will continue to apply to the information transferred.
• With your consent or at your direction.

11. Data retention

• Your documents are not retained by us at all, because they never leave your device.
• Contact messages are kept in our email inbox for as long as needed to respond and keep a record of the conversation, and are deleted on request.
• Newsletter email addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them.
• Google Analytics data is retained for no longer than 14 months, after which Google deletes it automatically.
• Hosting logs are kept for a short period by Vercel for security and troubleshooting.

12. Security

The Service is served only over HTTPS, and our design avoids collecting your documents in the first place. We limit the personal information we hold and use reputable providers with appropriate safeguards. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe you have found a security issue, please contact us.

13. International transfers

We operate from Pakistan, and our service providers may process information in the United States and other countries whose data protection laws may differ from those of your country. Where required, these transfers are protected by appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses used by our providers.

14. Your privacy rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and receive a copy.
• Correct inaccurate information.
• Delete your information.
• Object to or restrict certain processing, including processing based on legitimate interests.
• Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting processing that took place before.
• Receive your information in a portable format.
• Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

To exercise these rights, contact us. We will respond within the time required by applicable law, normally within 30 days, and may need to verify your request. For analytics and advertising data held by Google, you can also use Google’s own tools linked in sections 7 and 8.

15. Notice for California and other US residents

In the past 12 months we have collected identifiers (such as IP address, cookie identifiers and email address if you contacted us), internet or network activity, and approximate geolocation, for the purposes described in section 5. We do not sell personal information for money. Allowing Google and its partners to use cookies for personalized advertising may be considered “sharing” or “targeted advertising” under some US state laws. You can opt out through Google Ads Settings or by enabling the Global Privacy Control signal in your browser. You have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising your privacy rights. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of consumers under 16.

16. Children’s privacy

The Service is a general-purpose tool and is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA and UK). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

17. External links

Our pages and advertisements may link to websites we do not operate. We are not responsible for their content or privacy practices, and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

18. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the Service or the law changes. We will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page, and for material changes we will provide a more prominent notice on the site.

19. Contact us

Questions, requests or complaints about this policy or your personal information can be sent through our Contact page. We aim to reply within a few working days.