Privacy

Your bookmarks stay yours.

Effective 2 October 2026

Bookmark Bro has no accounts and no server that holds your bookmarks. Your library lives on your devices and in your own iCloud. We see two things: anonymous daily totals, and your email address if you choose to give it to us.

This page covers the Mac app, the iPhone app, the bookmarkbro command-line tool and MCP server, and bookmarkbro.com. “We” means Jouni Helminen, who makes Bookmark Bro.

What we collect

Anonymous counts (Mac app and website)

The Mac app and the website add one to a daily total on bookmarkbro.com when something happens, such as a launch, a sync finishing or failing, or a page being viewed. Each count records only:

• the day and the event name;
• one short detail: a setup step, a fixed error code, a rough size bucket (like “100–999”), the name of a command-line command or MCP tool with a rough call count, a page path, or the name of the website that linked to us;
• the app version and macOS major version (from the app);
• a two-letter country code, worked out by our host, Cloudflare, from the request.

There is no user or device identifier, and we don’t store IP addresses or user agents with counts. Nothing from your library is ever sent: no posts, no searches, no handles, no account names. Because each count is only a number added to a total, it can’t be tied back to you. You can switch this off in the Mac app under Settings › Share Anonymous Stats.

The iPhone app sends no counts or analytics at all.

Your email address (website, only if you enter it)

If you enter your email to download the Mac app, we store the email, when you first and last submitted it, which form it came from, your two-letter country, and your browser’s user agent. We use it to send occasional Bookmark Bro updates and nothing else. We don’t sell it or share it. To have it deleted, email us (below).

Update checks (Mac app)

The Mac app checks bookmarkbro.com for updates using Sparkle. Each check and download is counted the same anonymous way, with the app’s build number.

What we don’t collect

• Your bookmarks, posts, images, searches or notes.
• Your X, Instagram, Bluesky or Are.na sign-ins, passwords or tokens.
• Your name, contacts, location or anything that identifies you (except the email address you choose to give us).

The website sets no cookies and uses no local storage. There are no ads, no third-party trackers and no tracking across apps or websites.

Where your data lives

On your Mac

Your library is stored on your Mac. Search, including image search (which uses Apple’s on-device Vision framework), runs on your Mac. To make linked articles searchable, the app may fetch those pages directly from the sites they’re on. It also downloads its on-device search model from GitHub once, when it first needs it.

In your iCloud

If you use the iPhone app, the Mac app puts a copy of your library in your own private iCloud database (Apple’s CloudKit). Only your Apple Account can read it. We can’t see it. Apple’s privacy policy covers how Apple stores it.

On your iPhone

The iPhone app reads your library from your iCloud and keeps it on the phone. It has no Bookmark Bro account and talks to no Bookmark Bro server. Images and videos load straight from the sites the posts came from. It saves to your Photos only when you ask it to, and it can add your bookmarks to on-device Spotlight search.

Your sign-ins

• X and Instagram (Mac only). The Mac app uses the sign-in already saved in your web browser. It reads it on your Mac (macOS will ask you to allow this) and uses it to fetch your saved posts directly from x.com and instagram.com. It never leaves your Mac and never reaches us. The iPhone app never contacts X or Instagram for sync.
• Bluesky and Are.na. You sign in with a Bluesky app password or an Are.na access token. It’s kept in the Keychain on the device where you entered it and is used only to talk to Bluesky or Are.na directly.

Those services see the requests made with your account, as they would from their own apps. Their privacy policies apply to them.

AI apps you connect

The bookmarkbro command-line tool and MCP server run on your Mac and read your local library. If you connect an AI app (such as Claude, ChatGPT or Codex), that app receives the posts and search results it reads through them, and sends them to its provider under that provider’s terms. You choose which apps to connect. We receive only the anonymous counts described above (command or tool names and a rough count, never your queries or results).

Children

Bookmark Bro isn’t directed at children under 13.

Changes

If this changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top.

Contact

Questions, or want your email deleted? Write to [email protected].