Bookmark ScoutPrivacy
What Bookmark Scout reads, what it stores, and when data leaves your browser. A summary of the privacy policy.
This is a summary. The full privacy policy on the website is the one that applies; it took effect on .
In short
- No account and no server. Bookmark Scout runs inside your browser. The developer receives nothing from the extension.
- No telemetry. No analytics, crash reporting, or ads in the extension.
- AI is off until you turn it on, and then requests go straight from your browser to the provider you chose. In Firefox, turning it on also asks for your consent to share that data. With Chrome's built-in AI, folder suggestions stay on your computer.
- Local AI agents only if you allow them. With Allow local AI agents on (off by default), AI agents on your computer, such as Claude Code, can look up your bookmarks through the bookmark-scout-mcp program; they change them only with Allow changes on, each change after your approval.
- Permissions when you need them. At install the extension asks only for what it cannot work without; tab access, the right-click menu, the browser's icon cache, and website access are asked for when you first use the feature. See Permissions.
What the extension reads
- Your bookmarks, to show, search, edit, move, delete, import, and export them.
- The title and URL of the active tab, when you save the page you are on (from the popup, the side panel, or a quick save shortcut) or ask for a folder suggestion.
- Site icons from the browser's own icon cache, in Chrome and Edge, once you turn on Use the browser's icon cache.
- Site icons you download with Refresh Site Icons, from each bookmarked website.
It does not read the content of the pages you visit. After a quick save shortcut it shows its own notification in that tab, which reads nothing from the page.
What it stores
| Data | Where | Synced |
|---|---|---|
| Settings you changed from their default, including whether AI is on; not your AI provider, model, or API key | Browser sync storage | Yes, through your browser account when browser sync is on |
| Device settings: the folder chosen for quick save, the icon storage limit, AI activity recording, and Ask AI's web search | Local storage on this device | No |
| Local AI agent settings (on or off, hiding private values, the lookups turned off) and a random id for this browser profile | Local storage on this device | No |
| Custom prompts (Prompts under AI Tools): each prompt's name, task, and text, and which prompt each task uses; up to 10 | Browser sync storage | Same as settings |
| Bookmark table in the manager: shown columns, their order, and the sort | Browser sync storage | Same as settings |
| Bookmark table column widths and page size | Local storage on this device | No |
| AI services: each service's name, provider, and model | Local storage on this device | No |
| AI connection settings: API key, Base URL, extra headers, provider-specific fields | Local storage on this device | No. A backup file holds the Base URL and provider-specific fields, never the API key or extra headers |
| Model lists fetched from your AI services, kept for 7 days | Local storage on this device | No |
| AI activity, only while Record requests is on (off by default, per device): the last AI requests with what was sent and what came back, including bookmark titles, URLs, folder paths, and with Read page content on, page text. API keys and other credentials are removed before storing; turning recording off deletes it | Local storage on this device | No |
| Tags, summaries, saved searches, recent folders, recent searches | Local storage on this device | No |
| Site icons saved with Refresh Site Icons, up to 4 MB by default | Local storage on this device | No |
| The last quick save (the page's title and URL, and where it went), for Undo and Move to | Session storage on this device, cleared when the browser closes | No |
| The manager's undo history (the bookmarks you changed there, with copies of deleted ones and their tags and summaries), for undo and redo | Session storage on this device, cleared when the browser closes | No |
Scan results from the Tools sidebar are kept only while their dialog is open. Uninstalling the extension removes what it stored; your bookmarks stay in the browser.
Back up settings at the bottom of Settings saves a backup file with the settings you changed, your custom prompts, AI services (name, provider, model, Base URL, and provider-specific fields), saved searches, and the table's columns and sort. It never holds API keys or extra headers, and it is not encrypted. See Settings.
When data leaves your browser
Only when you use one of these, and only to the place named:
| Feature | Goes to | What is sent |
|---|---|---|
| AI folder recommendations, including the AI quick save shortcut | The AI provider you configured | The current page's title and URL, and your folder names. With Read page content on, also the page's main text |
| Auto-Tagging, Content Summarizer, AI Folder Reorganization | The AI provider you configured | Titles, URLs, and folder paths of the bookmarks in scope. With Read page content on, Auto-Tagging and Content Summarizer also send each page's main text; AI Folder Reorganization never does |
| Ask AI | The AI provider you configured | Your messages and the conversation so far, and what the AI looks up to answer: matching bookmarks (with their folders, dates added, tags, and summaries), folder names, the current page's title and URL, whether bookmarked links it checks still work, and with Read page content on, the text of pages it reads. With its web search on, the provider also searches the web. The conversation is not saved |
| Check Dead Links, Metadata Fetcher, Ask AI link checks | Each bookmarked website | A request for the page, without cookies, after you allow website access |
| Refresh Site Icons | Each bookmarked website | A request for one bookmarked page per site and for an icon file on that site's domain, without cookies, after you allow website access. No third-party icon service is used |
| Local AI agents, only with Allow local AI agents on (off by default) | The bookmark-scout-mcp program on your computer, and the AI agents you run there | What an agent asks for: matching bookmarks (with their folders, dates added, tags, and summaries), folder names, the current page's title and URL, whether bookmarked links still work (after you allow website access), and with Read page content on, a page's text. Private values in titles and URLs are hidden unless you turn that off. Agents may send what they read to their own AI provider. Each lookup is in AI activity while Record requests is on |
A provider running on your own computer, such as Ollama, keeps AI requests on your machine. So does Chrome's built-in AI: it runs folder suggestions on Chrome's own model on your computer, with no API key, and Chrome downloads that model from Google once, when you ask it to, without any of your data. Bookmark exports, AI Context Packer files, and the settings backup are saved as files on your computer and uploaded nowhere. A JSON bookmark export also holds each bookmark's tags and summary; for bookmark and AI context exports, a privacy review can redact sensitive values first. The exact data each AI tool sends is listed in Set up AI tools, and each permission is explained in Permissions.
This docs site
The docs are a static site with no analytics, no accounts, and no cookies of their own. Fonts are served from this site, not from Google Fonts. The privacy policy names the hosting provider.
Questions
Email privacy@bookmark-scout.com with privacy questions or data requests. To report a security problem, email security@bookmark-scout.com instead of opening a public issue.
Last updated on