Privacy policy

1. The extension

Everything the extension saves — archived tabs, folders, notes, screenshots, settings — is stored by your browser, on your machine, using the browser's own extension storage. It is not synced to us, and we have no way to read it.

There is no account, no sign-up and no login. We do not set cookies on your browser from the extension, and there is no analytics, telemetry or crash reporting in it.

What leaves your machine, and when

• With AI off — nothing. Tabs are grouped by comparing their text locally.
• With your own OpenRouter key — your browser talks to OpenRouter directly. We are not in the path and see nothing at all.
• With the Tab Closet server (the default) — your browser sends the job to this server, which forwards it to OpenRouter using our key. What travels is the tab title, URL and meta description, plus the names of your existing folders so the model can file into one. Page contents, screenshots, browsing history, form data and cookies never leave your machine.

Requests are passed to OpenRouter, which routes them to the model provider that answers them. Their handling is governed by their own terms and privacy policy. We do not keep the text of what was sent or what came back.

2. The Tab Closet server

When the extension uses our server, it registers once and receives an anonymous install id that we mint. That id is a random number. It is not derived from anything about you, your browser or your machine, and it identifies an installation rather than a person.

For each AI request we record: the install id, the time, the HTTP status, how long it took, the number of tokens and the cost the model reported, and a keyed hash of your IP address. The raw IP address is not written down anywhere — the hash exists so daily allowances can be counted per network, and it cannot be reversed into an address.

We keep this so the free tier can have limits at all, and so we can see what the service costs to run. It is not linked to any name, email address or advertising profile, and it is never sold or shared.

Reinstalling the extension mints a fresh install id and orphans the old one. If you want the record of an install removed, send us its id through the support form or support@tabcloset.app and we will delete it.

3. This website

The pages on tabcloset.app set no cookies and run no analytics. There is nothing here that follows you between sites.

Two third parties are involved in serving these pages: Google Fonts, which serves the two typefaces and therefore sees the request for them, and — on the support page only — Cloudflare Turnstile, the "I am human" check, which sees that request and uses it to tell a person from a bot. Turnstile is used instead of a CAPTCHA specifically because it does not profile visitors or track them across sites.

4. When you write to us

If you use the support form we store the name, email address, category and message you typed, together with the time and a keyed hash of your IP address. We use them to answer you and to spot abuse of the form, and for nothing else — no mailing list, no marketing.

Support messages are deleted once the matter is closed and there is no longer a reason to keep them, and in any case within 24 months.

5. How long things are kept

• Request logs (install id, timing, cost, IP hash) — kept while the install is in use, for usage accounting and abuse prevention.
• Support messages — until the matter is closed, at most 24 months.
• Your tabs and folders — for as long as you keep them, in your browser. Uninstalling the extension removes them with it.

6. Why we are allowed to do this

Under the GDPR, each of the few things we process has a basis:

• Running the AI service — performance of the agreement you enter into by using it (Art. 6(1)(b)). Without passing the tab title, URL and description to a model there is nothing to name your folders with.
• Request logs, the install id and the IP hash — our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in keeping a free, shared service affordable and unabused. This is why the IP is hashed rather than stored: the interest is in counting a network, not in knowing it.
• Answering your support message — legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) in replying to someone who wrote to us, and, where it concerns the service you use, performance of that agreement.

We do not rely on consent for any of it, because we do not do the things consent exists to cover: no advertising, no profiling, no tracking cookies.

7. Where the data goes

AI requests are passed to OpenRouter, which is in the United States, and on to the model provider answering them — which may be elsewhere again. That is a transfer outside the EEA. It happens only when you have the AI features switched on, only for the tab title, URL and description described above, and it is governed by OpenRouter's own terms and data processing arrangements. If you would rather nothing left the EEA at all, switch AI off in Options: the extension still archives, and still groups tabs by clustering them locally, with nothing leaving your machine.

8. Your rights

You have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to receive a copy of it, to restrict or object to how it is used, and — where processing rests on legitimate interests — to object to that specifically. Because we deliberately hold no identifying information, in most cases there is nothing to look up. But if you have an install id, or you have written to us, we can act on it. Ask through the support form or support@tabcloset.app, and we will answer within one month.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority: your own, or the supervisory authority in Estonia, where we are established.

9. Children

Tab Closet is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect anything from them.

10. Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Changes that affect what we collect will also be noted in the extension's release notes.