Yarn Diary

Privacy Policy

This policy covers the Yarn Diary web app and website at yarndiary.com. Yarn Diary is a free crochet project tracker, made and run by one person rather than a company; the contact address is at the bottom of this page.

The short version: what information is involved

• What you put into the app — projects, patterns, rounds, notes, photos, tracked time, settings. Stored in your browser on your device. Never sent to us.
• Google account data, only if you turn on Drive sync — the files Yarn Diary itself creates in your Google Drive, your Google account email address, and the sign-in tokens that let sync run. Used only to sync your projects between your devices; kept in your browser and your Drive, not on any server of ours. The details are under Google Drive sync and your Google data.
• Anonymous usage statistics — page and screen visits through Google Analytics, only where you have allowed it or not opted out. See Analytics.
• Technical request logs — kept by the companies that host the site, as with any website. See Hosting.

Nothing here is sold, and none of it is used for advertising.

What is stored, and where

Everything you put into Yarn Diary — projects, parts, rounds, notes, photos, tracked time and your settings — is written to your browser's own storage on the device you are using. It is never transmitted to any server operated by Yarn Diary: the app is a set of static files, and the one small service we do run (a sign-in helper for Drive sync, described below) never receives your data and stores nothing.

This has a consequence worth knowing: data held in browser storage belongs to that browser on that device. Clearing site data, uninstalling the browser, or in rare cases the browser reclaiming space under storage pressure will remove it. Export a backup from the Data screen if something matters to you.

Things that happen entirely on your device

• Reading a pattern from a photo or PDF. Text recognition and PDF parsing run inside the browser tab. Your patterns are never uploaded for processing.
• Photos. Resizing and thumbnails are done locally, and images stay in local storage unless you turn on sync.
• Fonts. Served from this site, not from a font CDN.

Analytics

Yarn Diary uses Google Analytics to count visits, see which screens get used, and count feature uses such as "a project was created", "a scan found rounds" or "a part was finished" — the aggregate numbers that answer "does the scanner work for people?", nothing more. It contains no advertising, no ad tracking and no tracking pixels, and your projects, patterns and photos are never part of what analytics sees: project identifiers are stripped from page addresses, app screens are reported by a fixed screen name rather than your project's name, and feature counts carry only fixed labels and numbers (like "photo" or "12 rounds"), never anything you typed or scanned.

How it is switched on and off:

• In the EU/EEA, the UK and similar opt-in regions (judged from your device's timezone), analytics is off until you allow it — the banner asks once, and ignoring it means no.
• Elsewhere, it is on by default and the banner offers a one-tap opt out.
• If your browser sends a privacy signal (Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track), analytics stays off without asking, unless you explicitly turn it on here.
• Your choice is stored in this browser only, and you can change it any time below.

When analytics is allowed, Google Analytics sets its _ga cookies and processes the data under the Google Privacy Policy. When it is off, Yarn Diary sets no cookies at all. The only other third-party script it can load is Google's sign-in code — and only on a device where you have switched on Google Drive sync: when you connect, and again only if sync ever needs a full sign-in. On a device that has never connected sync, it is never loaded.

Hosting

The site is hosted on GitHub Pages. Like any web host, GitHub receives the network requests needed to serve pages and may log technical information such as IP address and browser type. That processing is GitHub's and is covered by the GitHub Privacy Statement. Yarn Diary has no access to those logs.

The sign-in helper used by Drive sync (described in the next section) is hosted on Vercel, which likewise may log technical request information such as IP address, under the Vercel Privacy Policy. It is only ever contacted from a device where you have switched on sync.

Google Drive sync and your Google data (optional, off by default)

Sync exists so the same projects can appear on your phone and your computer. It is off until you connect a Google account on the Data screen, and you can disconnect at any time. Until you connect, Yarn Diary accesses no Google account data at all.

What Google data Yarn Diary accesses

• The files it creates in your Drive. Yarn Diary creates a folder named Yarn Diary in your Google Drive and keeps your projects and photos there. The permission requested is drive.file, the narrowest Drive scope available, and it is the only permission requested. It grants access only to files this app itself created. The rest of your Drive — every other document, photo and folder — stays invisible to it.
• Your Google account email address. Read from Google once you connect, so the Data screen can show which account sync is using ("Connected as …").
• Sign-in tokens. A short-lived access token that expires within about an hour, and a renewal token used to quietly obtain the next one. Both only ever reach files this app created.

That is the whole list. Yarn Diary does not access your name, profile picture, contacts, calendar, mail, or any Drive file it did not create.

How that data is used

• The files are written, read and updated to keep your projects and photos the same on each device where you have connected sync. That is the only thing done with them.
• The email address is shown to you on the Data screen, and used for nothing else.
• The tokens authorise those requests to Google Drive, so that sync can carry on by itself after you reload the page — without them, Google would have to be asked again every single time, and asking opens a sign-in window.

Google data is not used for advertising, analytics or profiling, and is not used to develop, improve or train AI or machine-learning models.

Where it is stored, and how it is protected

• Your projects and photos are stored in your own Google Drive, in your account, and in this browser's storage on your device. They travel directly between your browser and Google Drive over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection and do not pass through any server of ours.
• The email address and the two sign-in tokens are stored in this browser's storage on your device, and nowhere else.
• Sign-in is helped by one small Yarn Diary service. A page in a browser cannot hold the credential Google requires for a sign-in that renews itself, so this service holds it and does the exchange: it turns your one-time sign-in into tokens and later trades the renewal token for fresh ones. The tokens pass through it over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, and that is all it does: it has no database, stores nothing, logs no tokens, and never sees your projects, photos or email address.
• Signing in loads Google's sign-in script from accounts.google.com. That request only ever happens on a device where sync is switched on — to connect, and later to renew the sign-in — never before you use sync.

Who it is shared with

No one. Yarn Diary does not sell, rent, transfer or disclose Google user data to any third party. The only parties involved are you, Google — whose handling of your account and Drive is governed by the Google Privacy Policy — and the sign-in helper described above, which passes tokens between your browser and Google and keeps nothing.

How long it is kept, and how to delete it

• The email address and tokens stay in this browser until you disconnect on the Data screen. Disconnecting deletes them from the browser and revokes the tokens with Google.
• The files in your Drive are yours and stay until you delete them; disconnecting leaves them where they are. To remove them, delete the Yarn Diary folder from Google Drive.
• You can withdraw the app's access entirely at your Google account permissions page.
• No server of ours holds a copy of any of it, so there is nothing retained on our side once you have done the above.

Limited use

Yarn Diary's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements. In plain terms: the data is used only to provide the sync feature you asked for. It is never sold, never transferred to anyone else, never used for advertising, and never read by a human.

Deleting your data

• On a device: use Delete everything on the Data screen, or clear site data in your browser settings.
• In Drive: disconnect on the Data screen, then delete the Yarn Diary folder from Google Drive. You can also revoke the app's access entirely at your Google account permissions page.

Because we keep no copy of your data, there is none for anyone to delete on your behalf, and no request you need to send to have it removed.

Children

Yarn Diary is a general-purpose hobby tool and is not directed at children. It has no accounts and asks no one for personal details, of any age.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes to how data is handled will be described here rather than quietly amended.

Contact

Yarn Diary is run by one person. Questions about privacy, or about anything on this page, are welcome at support@yarndiary.com.