LinkNest
LinkNest — Privacy Policy
Summary
LinkNest is an offline-first app for saving and organizing links. Your links live on your own device, in a database only LinkNest uses.
- No account is required, and LinkNest has no server of its own.
- LinkNest does not collect your information. The app has no server of its own, and nothing you save is transmitted to KaRZMa Code. There is no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising, and no tracking identifier of any kind in it. This is separate from the ordinary web requests described below, which go directly to the websites you save — never to us.
- Nothing is sold or shared, because none of it ever reaches us.
- LinkNest connects to the internet in only three situations, all described below, and one of them is entirely optional and off until you turn it on.
The rest of this policy explains exactly what is stored and when the app communicates with anything outside your device.
1. What LinkNest stores on your device
Everything you create in LinkNest is written to local storage on the device you are using, in a folder belonging to the app rather than among your own files — on Android, the app's private storage; on Windows, LinkNest's own folder under your user profile's application data:
- Links — the web address, the title, an optional description and note, whether it is a favourite, and when it was added, changed, or last opened.
- Categories — their names, icons, colours, ordering, nesting, and how recently each was used.
- Site icons (favicons) — a small image file downloaded from each website so your list still shows icons when you are offline.
- Trash — items you delete are kept until you delete them permanently or empty the Trash.
- Your preferences — theme (light or dark), language, sorting and grouping choices, recent search terms, whether App Lock is on and its timeout, and whether the first-run welcome has been dismissed.
This data stays on the device unless you turn on Google Drive backup and sync (section 3).
We have no access to any of it. LinkNest has no backend server, so this data is never transmitted to the publisher.
2. What LinkNest does *not* do
- No analytics or usage statistics.
- No crash or error reporting.
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No device fingerprinting, tracking pixels, or third-party tracking SDKs.
- No user account, profile, or registration.
- No sale or sharing of personal information.
- No location access, contacts access, microphone, or camera.
These are deliberate product decisions, not omissions.
3. When LinkNest connects to the internet
LinkNest is usable entirely offline. Network requests happen in exactly three situations.
3.1 Reading a link's title and icon
When you save a link — or edit one — LinkNest requests that page from the website you saved, in order to read its title and find its icon.
- The request goes directly to that website, not through us.
- Like any request from a browser, it reveals your device's IP address and the address you requested to that website and its hosting or CDN provider. That is unavoidable for any app that fetches a page, and it is the same information the site would receive if you opened the link yourself.
- The request identifies the app in its
User-Agentheader. It carries no personal information, no account details, and no identifier for you or your device beyond what any ordinary web request contains. - The icon is saved locally so your list works offline. Nothing else from the page is stored.
- If the request fails or you are offline, the link is saved anyway, without a title or icon.
3.2 Google Drive backup and sync — optional, off by default
Described in section 4.
3.3 Opening a link
When you open a saved link, LinkNest hands it to your browser or to whichever app your device is set to use. From that point the link is out of LinkNest's hands and the other app's own privacy policy applies.
4. Google Drive backup and sync (optional)
This feature is off until you sign in, and LinkNest is fully functional without it.
What it does. It keeps a single backup file — a snapshot of your links, categories, and preferences — in your own Google Drive, so you can restore it or move it to another device.
What LinkNest can access in your Drive. Sign-in requests only the drive.file scope. This is the narrowest Drive permission Google offers: it grants access only to files this app itself created. LinkNest cannot see, read, or list any other file in your Google Drive, and it does not ask to.
Where your data goes. Into your own Google Drive account. The publisher has no access to it. Google's handling of it is governed by the Google Privacy Policy.
What LinkNest keeps about your Google account.
- On Android, the email address of the signed-in account is shown in the app so you can tell which account is connected. It is held in memory for the session and is not written into the app's own storage. The sign-in session itself is managed by Google Play services on your device, not by LinkNest.
- On Windows, sign-in uses a browser-based consent flow. So that you do not have to sign in again every time you open LinkNest, one item is stored on your computer: a refresh token — the credential that lets LinkNest reconnect to the Google Drive account you chose.
- It is kept in the Windows Credential Manager, the store Windows provides for exactly this purpose. Windows encrypts it and makes it readable only by your own Windows user account. It is not placed in LinkNest's data folder, is not included in a backup you export, and is not part of anything synchronised to Google Drive.
- It is used for one thing only: keeping your Google Drive connection alive so backup and restore work. It is never used for advertising, never used to build an advertising profile, and never used to train artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models.
- It is never sent to KaRZMa Code, and never uploaded anywhere. It travels only between your computer and Google, which is where it came from.
- The short-lived access token, and everything else about the session, stays in memory and is discarded when LinkNest closes.
- You can see the entry — and delete it yourself — in Windows under Credential Manager → Windows Credentials.
How to disconnect. Choose Disconnect inside LinkNest at any time. On Windows this deletes the stored refresh token from the Windows Credential Manager and asks Google to revoke the app's access, so nothing is left that could reconnect on its own. You can also revoke the app's access entirely from your Google Account's third-party access settings. To remove the backup itself, delete the LinkNest backup file from your Google Drive.
When you will be asked to sign in again. Only when there is a real reason: you chose Disconnect, you revoked LinkNest's access from your Google account, or Google no longer accepts the stored credential — for example because it expired through long disuse, or your account's security settings changed. LinkNest does not sign you out on a schedule.
The exact permission requested. Signing in requests a single OAuth scope and no other: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file It grants access only to files LinkNest itself creates in your Drive. LinkNest cannot list, read, modify, or delete anything else in your Google Drive, and does not request a broader permission because it does not need one.
Limited Use. LinkNest’s use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Google user data obtained through this scope is used solely to provide the backup and restore feature described above. It is never transferred to anyone else, never sold, never used for advertising, never used to build advertising profiles, and never used to train artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models. Because LinkNest has no server, that data never reaches KaRZMa Code at all, so no person here can read it.
5. App Lock
If you enable App Lock, LinkNest asks the operating system to confirm your identity — using the fingerprint, face, or device PIN/password you have already set up — before showing your links.
The check is performed entirely by Android or Windows. LinkNest never receives, sees, or stores your biometric data, PIN, or password. The app only learns whether the system reported success or failure. Nothing about it leaves your device.
If your device has no screen lock or biometric enrolled, App Lock disables itself and explains why, rather than locking you out of your own data.
6. Clipboard and sharing
- Sharing a link to LinkNest (Android): when you share a link from another app, that link is passed to LinkNest so you can save it. It is used only for that purpose.
- Reading the clipboard (Windows): LinkNest reads the clipboard only at the moment you use the "add from clipboard" action. It does not monitor or read the clipboard in the background.
- Copying a link places that link on your clipboard at your request.
Clipboard content is never transmitted anywhere.
7. Keeping and deleting your data
- Deleting a link or category moves it to Trash, where it stays until you remove it permanently or empty the Trash.
- Permanent deletion removes the record from the database. Cached site icons that no remaining link uses are deleted at the same time.
- Restoring from a backup replaces the entire current library with the contents of that backup. LinkNest warns you before doing this, and it cannot be undone.
- Uninstalling LinkNest removes the app's local data on Android, where the system deletes app-private storage as part of uninstalling. On Windows, uninstalling may leave LinkNest's application-data folder behind — Windows does not guarantee that files an app created are removed with it. To be certain nothing remains, delete LinkNest's folder under your user profile's roaming application data after uninstalling.
- Your Google Drive backup is not removed by uninstalling. If you want it gone, delete the LinkNest backup file from your Google Drive, and optionally revoke the app's access from your Google Account settings.
Because there is no server, there is nothing held about you anywhere else to request, correct, or delete. Your data is in your hands: on your device, and — only if you chose to enable it — in your own Google Drive.
8. Children
LinkNest is a general-purpose utility and is not directed at children. It does not knowingly collect information from anyone, of any age.
9. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be published at this same address with a new "Last updated" date. Material changes to how the app handles data will also be reflected in the app's release notes.
10. Contact
Questions about this policy or about privacy in LinkNest:
KaRZMa Code — karzma.code@gmail.com