Privacy Policy
Milldown is built on a simple principle: your documents are none of our business. This policy explains the little data that is handled, and by whom.
The app
- Your documents never leave your computer. Conversion, OCR, and token counting all run locally. The app contains no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting, and no account system. It does not phone home to tell us you launched it, what you converted, or how often.
- Web page and YouTube conversion fetches only the URLs you explicitly enter — the page, or the captions YouTube already publishes — directly from your computer to that site. We are not in that path.
- Update checks (Sparkle framework) periodically request a version file from milldown.app so the app can tell you when a new release is available. This transmits no personal data beyond a standard web request. Milldown asks on first launch whether to check automatically; decline and it only ever checks when you ask it to.
- License activation sends your license key and your computer's name to our licensing service to verify the key and count activations. No document data is ever included — and every response is cryptographically signed, so the app only trusts the genuine server.
- Azure Document Intelligence / Content Understanding are optional, off by default, and configured by you. If you enable them, your documents are sent to Microsoft's servers for processing under Microsoft's terms — this is the one path where document content leaves your computer, and the app labels it as such.
- Session restore, if enabled, stores your converted Markdown on this computer at
~/Library/Application Support/Milldown/session.json%LOCALAPPDATA%\Milldown\session.jsonso your work reopens with the app. Turn it off in Settings ▸ GeneralSettings ▸ Workflow to stop saving and delete the file.
Purchases
Payments are processed by Stripe as merchant of record (Stripe Managed Payments): Stripe is the legal seller of record, collects the billing details needed to process your order (name, email, payment method, country) under its own privacy policy, calculates and remits VAT/sales tax, and issues your receipt. We receive your email address and order details so we can deliver your license key and provide support — we never see your payment details.
This website
milldown.app is a static site hosted by Vercel Inc., which keeps standard server logs (IP address, user agent, pages requested) for security and operations under its own privacy policy.
The site sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device — no cookie, no local or session storage. There is no cookie banner because there is nothing to consent to.
We use Vercel Web Analytics to count page views and see which pages people find useful. It is cookieless: it stores nothing on your device, assigns no persistent identifier, and cannot follow you to other websites. Visitor counts are derived from a hash that is discarded daily. We see aggregate figures — page, country, referrer, browser, device type — never individuals.
We also keep our own first-party record of which pages are viewed, which site you arrived from (its domain name only) and when a download or checkout is started, so we can tell which articles and links actually help people find Milldown. These records hold no name, no email address, no IP address, and nothing about your documents.
Links we publish elsewhere — in an article or a post — may carry a random reference code so we can tell which link brought you here. If you arrive by one, that code is held in the page only, for the length of your visit: it is cleared from the address bar, carried along as you move between pages, and passed to Stripe with a purchase so the right link gets the credit. It is never written to your device, so it is gone the moment you close the tab, and it identifies the link — not you.
We do not use Google Analytics, advertising pixels, session recording, heatmaps, or any cross-site tracking, and we do not sell or share visitor data with anyone.
Forms
Three forms on this site use FormDock: the support form, and the Windows notification forms on the home page and the Windows page. FormDock is our own form service, operated from Switzerland by the same sole proprietorship as Milldown — your message is not handed to an unrelated company — but its submission storage is currently hosted in the United States under recognised transfer safeguards. It receives what you type: your email address, your message or the optional note about what you plan to convert, and standard request metadata.
Each form is protected by Cloudflare Turnstile, an anti-spam check that runs in your browser rather than a puzzle you have to solve. To judge whether a submission is automated, Cloudflare processes your IP address and browser characteristics under its own privacy policy. It is not used for advertising or cross-site tracking, and it sets no cookie on this site.
Support messages are kept for as long as needed to help you. Addresses left for the Windows notification are used for that one announcement and deleted once it has been sent.
Data controller
Milldown is an independent software product operated as a sole proprietorship in Switzerland. For any data protection question, or to identify the responsible person formally, write to support@milldown.app and we will respond.
Your rights
Under Swiss data protection law (FADP) and, where applicable, the GDPR, you can request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal data we hold (practically: your support messages, any address left for the Windows notification, and your order records). Write to the address below.