Privacy

Images

Conversion runs entirely in your browser, in a background worker on this page. Your image, the traced result and your settings are not sent to us or anyone else. The one exception is the optional Cloud mode of the coloring page maker, the coloring book maker, the stencil maker, the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker, described next. You can confirm this in your browser's developer tools on the Network tab.

Cloud mode (optional)

The coloring page maker, the coloring book maker, the stencil maker, the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker each have a second mode that works the same way: on the coloring page maker it is Cloud AI redraw, on the coloring book maker Redraw with Cloud AI (one page of the book at a time), on the stencil maker Cloud AI simplify and on the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker Simplify the photo with Cloud AI. The six share one free allowance. Everything below applies to all six. On the stencil maker and the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker the AI only redraws your photo (as a bold black-and-white picture, or as a flatter picture in broad patches of colour); the stencil or the chart is then made from that picture on your device, and nothing more is sent. The coloring book maker asks for the same line art as the coloring page maker, for one page at a time, and the redrawn page goes into the book on your device. The text that follows describes the coloring page maker's mode, and the stencil maker and the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker differ only in what the AI is asked to draw.

The coloring page maker has a second mode, Cloud AI redraw. It is off unless you switch to it. Opening it starts Cloudflare's human check (below), and nothing about your photo is sent until you tick a consent box and press the button. When you do, your browser makes a smaller copy of your photo (a canvas copy, so camera data such as the location is not in it) and sends it to our server, which passes it to Cloudflare Workers AI (Cloudflare, Inc., United States) to be redrawn as line art. The drawing is sent back to your browser. We do not store the photo or the drawing: they exist in the server's memory for the few seconds the request takes, and our own records of Cloud requests hold counts and one-way hashes only (the hosting request logs described under Server logs keep the address, page and time, as for every page). Cloudflare says it does not use content processed by Workers AI to train its models; its own terms and privacy policy govern what it does on its side.

To stop abuse and cap the cost of the 3 free Cloud pages, Cloud mode uses Cloudflare Turnstile, a human check that Cloudflare runs in your browser (its script loads from challenges.cloudflare.com only when you open Cloud mode, so Cloudflare sees your address and browser details, and our server passes your address to Cloudflare when it checks the result), a cookie named mf_cv (httpOnly, 30 days, used only on the Cloud routes) that holds a random, signed visitor id, and a one-way hash of your network address (an IPv6 address is cut to its first half first). We keep, for 30 days at most, a count of Cloud pages against the visitor id, and for a few days a count against the network hash; neither can be turned back into your photo or your address. If you have Pro, your browser also sends your licence key with each Cloud request, and we keep a count of the Cloud pages you used this month (or during a free trial) against a one-way hash of that key (for about 40 days at most), never a photo. The site's own counters record how many Cloud pages were started, finished or failed, without anything about you.

Cloud mode is for people 18 or older, for photos you have the right to use and of people who are fine with it. If you would rather nothing leaves your device, choose On this device, which is the default and has no limit.

What we store in your browser

We use your browser's local storage for your theme choice and, if you activate Pro, your license key and when it was last checked. The tool pages also keep a small note of whether the Chrome extension tip below a download was last shown, closed or followed, so it is not shown again too soon. After you save a result, the tool pages also keep a small record in local storage of when the question 'Did this give you what you wanted?' was last shown, whether you answered or closed it, and for which tools, so it is not asked again too soon. It stays on your device. The pricing page likewise remembers that you answered or closed its one-question poll, so you are asked once. The pixel pattern maker keeps its last settings and, if you use Use my colours, the list of colours you typed in (hex codes and the names you gave them), and, if you fill them in, the shop name and licence line of its seller pack, so they are there next time. If you close the price notice at the top of the pages, local storage remembers that, so it stays closed. All of this stays on your device, and clearing site data removes it. If you arrive through a partner's link (an address with ?ref=), the page also keeps that partner's code and the date for 30 days: the code is added to our daily totals and, if you buy Pro, goes with your checkout (see Payments and licenses). If you use the browser extension, it keeps its own small record in the extension's storage: the last tool you used, your print-ready choices, and your Pro key and plan if you have one.

When you press a next-step button that says your saved picture comes with you, the picture, its file name and the time are kept in your browser's storage (IndexedDB, or session storage for small files) so the next tool can open it. It can be opened for 10 minutes, after which it is of no use. It is not sent to us or anyone else, it is deleted the moment the next tool opens it, and one that was never opened is deleted the next time you open a tool on this site. If you never press such a button, nothing is stored. To decide when to show one light note about Pro, after you have finished ten of your own pictures, this browser also keeps a small count in local storage: how many results, when the note was last shown, and whether you asked not to see it again. That count stays on your device. Two more small records are kept the same way: how many pictures you finished on each tool today (to decide when to mention the Pro batch), when that card was last closed, and whether this device has used its one free batch. They stay on your device too. Under the next steps there is also a small text button about saved workflows (a Pro feature of the optional account): pressing it keeps a yes-or-no note for that tool in local storage, so it counts once, and we count the press as a total with the tool page only. Next to it are five small buttons that ask where you would send a finished file, which is not built yet (Etsy, Printify, Printful, Google Drive or something else): pressing one keeps a yes-or-no note for that destination in local storage, so it counts once for each choice, and we count the press with the destination and the tool page only, never your file or its name.

My presets on the tool pages are kept in your browser's local storage on this device, one list for each tool: the name you give a preset and the settings it holds, never your picture. They are not sent to us or anyone else unless you turn on Pro sync (next paragraph) or sign in to the optional account, which syncs them with it (see Optional accounts), and no account is needed. Copying a preset link puts the settings after the # in the address, which your browser never sends to a server. We also keep a first-visit date there (one day, no time) and note which of three return counts we already made, so a visit a day, a week or a month later can be counted once, and two yes-or-no notes (that you have saved a preset, and that you pressed the sync-interest button), so each is counted once per device. We count how often presets are saved, applied, exported, imported or linked, and that someone pressed the sync-interest button, as totals with the tool page only, and how often Pro sync is switched on, switched off, deleted from the server or fails, the same way; names and settings are never part of those totals. To clear all of this, clear this site's data in your browser settings, or delete a preset in its menu.

Pro sync is off until you turn it on, and it is only for a browser that holds an active Pro license key. When you turn it on, your presets for every tool (each name, its settings and when it was last changed, never a picture) are sent to our server and stored under a one-way hash of your license key; the key itself is not stored with them and we do not write it to our logs. Each time a tool page loads with sync on, your browser reads that copy and merges it with the presets on the device: for each tool and preset name, the newest change wins. A preset you delete is remembered by name for 30 days so your other devices drop it too. Nothing else is stored with it: no address, browser details, account or email. Turning sync off stops anything more being sent but does not delete the copy; the button Delete my synced presets from the server in the presets menu does, and the copy also expires 24 months after sync was last used.

Optional accounts

No tool needs an account. If you make one, we keep: your email address (this is the one place we keep an address in plain text, because you chose to make an account); how you sign in (your Google account id, or the id of your email-and-password login at Amazon Cognito, which keeps the password verifier: your password does not reach us and is not stored here); the date you confirmed you are 16 or older; when you last signed in and the day you last used the account (from signing in, opening the dashboard, or your saved settings syncing when you open a tool page; it never records which tool or what you made); your favourite tools; the Pro license keys linked to the account; your synced saved settings (a free account keeps the newest 25 in sync, Pro all of them); and, with Pro, your saved workflows (tool names and settings, never a picture). Accounts are for people 16 and over. The site's owner can see each account's email address, the date and time it was made, when it last signed in and the day it was last used, in a private owner page, to run the site and answer support questions; they are not shown to anyone else and we do not share them.

Signing in sets a cookie, mf_session, that holds a random token, is sent only to this site's /api addresses, cannot be read by any script, and lasts 60 days from the last time it is used. We keep only a one-way hash of the token with the account, the times it was made and last used, and a short label such as "Chrome on Android" so you can tell your devices apart; no IP address is kept with it. Two short cookies exist only while you sign in: mf_oauth (10 minutes, the state of a Google sign-in) and mf_pending (10 minutes, a first Google sign-in waiting for your age answer). "Continue with Google" takes you to Google, which tells us your Google account id and verified email address; email and password go through Amazon Cognito, which sends the confirmation and reset codes from no-reply@verificationemail.com. A code you make to sign in on another device works once, for 10 minutes, and is stored as a one-way hash.

Pro on every device: when Pro is bought on this site, we keep a one-way hash of the buyer's email address on the license (never the address), so signing in with the same address finds it; for older purchases we may ask the payment provider for that address once, only to make the hash. In your browser, the account leaves a small note in local storage that you are signed in (so the header can link to your dashboard), and the dashboard shows the tools you opened last, kept in local storage on that device only and not sent to us. We count sign-ins, sign-ups, linked keys and dashboard views as daily totals by method or plan, never with an id or an address.

On the dashboard, under Settings, you can download everything the account holds as a file, and delete the account: that removes the account, every session, the synced settings and workflows, and the email-and-password login; license keys keep working on their own. Sessions end 60 days after their last use; an account is kept until you delete it.

While you are not signed in, a few small notes may mention the account (for example after you save a preset, or when you come back to the site). To decide when, this browser keeps one small record in local storage: the day it first saw this site, which note was shown last and when, a note you closed, and how many results you finished on a tool today. It stays on your device. We count that a note was shown, followed or closed as a daily total with the name of the note only, never with an id or anything about you. Nothing is shown to a signed-in browser.

Partners

If you become a partner on your dashboard, we keep with your account: the Whop username you give and Whop's user id for it, the code in your link, the date you accepted the partner terms and their version, the places you said you will share your link and the optional link to where you post. To check that you joined our affiliate offer, our server asks Whop, with our own key, for that username's affiliate record: whether it is listed, Whop's user id, how many members it referred and what it earned, and, when Whop gives it, the email address of that Whop account, which we compare with your account's address and do not keep. We count the visits, checkouts and purchases that come with your code, as totals by day and month, with nothing about the people who clicked. The site owner sees the list of partners with their account email address, to approve or remove them. Leaving the programme, or deleting your account, removes all of it; the download of your data includes it.

Payments and licenses

Checkout on this site is provided by Whop (whop.com), which collects your payment details and your email address under its own privacy policy, and we never see your card. Our server asks Whop, with our own key, about the payment and the membership it belongs to. From Whop we receive and keep the plan you bought, its status and dates, whether you have set it to end when the paid period or trial does, your Whop user id, a reference to the Whop membership or payment, and the license key we issue. We do not keep your card, and we do not keep your email address, except in an optional account if you make one (see Optional accounts below) and as a one-way hash on a license bought here, so that signing in with that address finds it. We use these to issue and check your license, let you manage billing, and answer support requests, and ask Whop again from time to time so a cancelled or refunded plan stops unlocking the site. If you came through the link of a partner in our affiliate program, your checkout also carries that partner's Whop affiliate code, so Whop can credit and pay the partner; we send Whop nothing else about you for it. We keep them for as long as the license exists, and afterwards as long as tax and accounting law requires.

Version 1.1 of the Makerfern browser extension could sell Pro through ExtensionPay (extensionpay.com), with Stripe taking the payment. Version 1.2 removed that: the extension takes no payment, shows no checkout and does not contact ExtensionPay. For a license bought that way in 1.1, we keep the random key ExtensionPay gave that install, the plan, its status and dates, and the license key we issued, and our server still asks ExtensionPay from time to time so a cancelled or refunded plan stops unlocking Pro. We don't keep the email address ExtensionPay has for you. That license key keeps working, in the extension and on this site.

Pro early access

If you ask for early access on the pricing page, we keep the email address you give, the plan you picked, what you said you'd use Pro for, your optional note, your two optional answers about what monthly price would feel too expensive and what would feel like a bargain, and where your visit came from (such as a search engine, a campaign name or a partner code). We use them only to write to you about Pro. There is no newsletter and we don't share or sell the list. To be removed, email owner@makerfern.com and we'll delete it.

Pro feedback questionnaire

If we invite you to answer the Pro feedback questionnaire and you do, we keep your answers together with your email address. We use your answers to improve the tools and to decide what to build next and what Pro should include and cost, and we may share them in summary or quote an answer without your name or email address, for example in our updates. We never sell your answers or your address, and we don't pass them to advertisers. We write to you once with a follow-up question only if you ticked the box that allows it. The free month of Pro you get for answering is a licence tied to that same address. The private link we send you works only for your own address, and we keep your answers for as long as they are useful for improving the tools. To have them deleted, email owner@makerfern.com.

Ratings, notes and suggestions

After you save a result of your own picture, a tool page may ask whether it gave you what you wanted, and every page has a Suggest a tool or improvement link in the footer. Both are optional and no tool needs them. Your answer (yes, partly or no) and any reasons you tick from a short fixed list are added to our daily totals with the tool page and the broad kind of device, like the other counts above; nothing is kept about you with them. If you also write a note, we keep its words (up to 600 characters), the tool page, your answer and the reasons you ticked, what the note is about (on the suggestion page), whether your device is a phone, a tablet or a computer, and the day it was sent (not the time). We do not keep your name, email address, account, IP address, picture, its file name or your tool settings with it, and the box has no way to attach any of them. If you type something private into a note it is stored as you typed it, so please do not. Only the site owner reads notes, on a private page; they are not shown to other visitors or published, and we may copy a sentence into our own planning notes without any detail about you. To limit how many notes one connection can send in a day, we keep a one-way code made from your network address, a secret and the date for up to about three days; it is not stored with the note and cannot be turned back into the address. Like any request, sending a note appears in the standard server logs described under Server logs, though the words of the note do not. A note is deleted automatically about 180 days after it was sent; one that looks automated, or was sent from the owner's own test browser, is deleted after about 14 days instead. A deleted note can remain in a database backup for up to 35 days. A note does not say who sent it, so we cannot look yours up afterwards, and a sent note cannot be edited or taken back; if you want one deleted, email owner@makerfern.com with some of its words and roughly when you sent it. We cannot reply from the box; to ask for an answer, email owner@makerfern.com. We never sell notes or answers and we do not publish ratings.

Contacting us

Mail sent to owner@makerfern.com arrives in the owner's inbox. We keep it only as long as it takes to deal with the message and any follow-up.

Owner account

The private site-owner account is provided by Amazon Cognito and is separate from Pro licenses. Cognito stores that account's email, password verifier and authenticator-app setup. Makerfern keeps its short-lived access and identity tokens in the current browser tab only; closing the tab clears them. It is separate from the optional visitor accounts above: neither a visitor account nor a license key can open private analytics.

Emailing a file to yourself

Any tool can email you the file you just made. When you use it, the file and your address are sent to our server for exactly as long as it takes Amazon SES to accept the message; neither is stored afterwards. Your address is confirmed once with a six-digit code, and what we keep is a one-way hash of it — not the address itself — together with the date it was confirmed, a token that lets this browser skip the code next time, a count of how many files were sent today, and whether you ticked "tell me when new tools launch". A hash cannot be turned back into an address, so this record cannot be used to email you anything you did not ask for, and it is not a mailing list anyone could export. The confirmation step exists so that nobody can use the site to send files to a stranger.

The browser extension

The extension does its work on your computer, with the same code this site runs in your browser: pictures are not uploaded to us. It reads the picture you right-click and, only when you ask, the markup of the page you are on, which stays on your machine. When you pick a menu item on a picture that lives on another site, Chrome may ask whether the extension can read pictures from that site; the extension keeps nothing about it except the site's name until you answer. It runs automatically on one site, this one, for two things: so a picture can be passed from the extension into a tool here, and so the Pro key this site keeps in your browser can unlock the extension (and a key pasted into the extension can unlock Pro here). If you have a Pro key, the extension stores it and its plan on your device and sends the key to this site, at most once a day, to ask whether it is still active. It remembers, on your device, the last tool you opened a picture in and the way of printing and printed width you chose on the print-ready card. It contains no analytics and no account, and it never takes a payment or sees a card. Without a Pro key it sends us nothing.

Tools that fetch a web address

The page checker, the link preview checker and the page picture finder work on an address you paste, so our server fetches that page (and, for the preview, its card picture) on your behalf. We log the request as described below and do not keep the page. Pictures you download through the picture finder pass through and are not stored.

Server logs

Like any website, our hosting records standard request logs (IP address, requested page, time, browser type) for security and troubleshooting. The content delivery network that serves this site keeps these standard request logs (IP address, browser type, the page that linked to the request, and the full address requested, including anything after a question mark such as a campaign tag) for 30 days, for security and to see which assistants and search crawlers read the site, and then deletes them. It does not log cookies.

First-party usage totals

To understand whether the tools are useful, pages send small event records to our own service on this domain. They can say that a page loaded, a page's scripts could not start (and which of three broad reasons: a browser too old for them, a script that never arrived, or a stall), a tool was started, an error appeared (and which of a few fixed kinds it was, such as an unreadable file; for a fault in our own code, the script file, line number and error type), a download was saved, a pricing link or the Chrome Web Store link was followed, the price notice at the top of the pages was closed or its link followed, a Pro offer or a Pro button was shown or clicked, which next-step button was pressed (from which tool to which tool, and whether the saved picture went with it), whether a carried picture arrived, whether the Pro note was shown, opened or dismissed, whether the Pro panel, the batch card or the free-batch offer was shown, pressed or dismissed (and, when you start checkout from one, which of them it was), which one of four answers was tapped on the single poll question on the pricing page and, only if you choose to fill them in, the two whole-dollar monthly prices (too expensive, a bargain) asked after the answer "The price" (no text; the only things typed are those two numbers, and only the amounts are counted), whether the question 'Did this give you what you wanted?' was shown, closed or answered (yes, partly or no) and which of a few fixed reasons were ticked (no text), which of a few named modes of a tool was used and whether a download was made while it was on (the mode's name only, such as Diamond painting, never its settings or values), which group of a tool's settings was opened in its sidebar and whether the Folded or All open view was picked (the group's heading only, such as Print size, never what is set in it), or how long the tab was active. They include the page path, the previous page on this site (for counting steps between pages), broad device class, referring website hostname, and download format where relevant. The first page of a visit also says the browser's language setting (two letters, such as "es"), so we can count which translations would help most. A start or a download also says one word about where the picture came from: one you brought, one the extension handed over, or the sample button's (never the picture or its name). The page also says whether this browser was signed in to an optional account (yes or no, never which account), so we can count what signed-in visitors do as a group. Some pages run a simple layout test: this browser is given one version at random and keeps it (a short word such as "b" in this browser's local storage, and for the open tab in its session storage), and that word is sent with these events so we can tell which version led to a download, a pricing click, an early-access request or a checkout. Only totals are kept: nothing links one visitor's pages together. They never include your image or output file, filename, pasted web address, form or calculator values, design settings, full referrer URL, or the text of an error.

For an approximate daily visitor count, the service turns the request IP address and browser type into a short one-way code using a secret and the current date. The address and browser string are not stored, the code cannot follow anyone across days, and it expires after 45 days. Aggregated daily totals are retained so we can see whether pages and tools are improving. This first-party measurement uses no analytics cookie and sends nothing to an advertising network.

Fonts and third parties

Fonts and all site scripts are served from our own domain. The site loads nothing from advertising or third-party analytics companies. The one third-party script is Cloudflare Turnstile, which loads from Cloudflare only when you open the optional Cloud mode of the coloring page maker, the coloring book maker, the stencil maker, the pixel pattern maker, the knitting chart maker and the latch hook pattern maker, as described under Cloud mode.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of the license and account data we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, subject to records we must keep by law. An account holder can download a copy and delete the account themselves, on the dashboard under Settings. Contact us at owner@makerfern.com. A note carries nothing that identifies you, so we cannot find yours by name; see Ratings, notes and suggestions for how to ask for one to be deleted.