Privacy Policy

Last updated 9 October 2026

1. What never leaves your computer

These are written to a folder on your own machine and are never uploaded to us or anyone else:

• Your tasks: titles, notes, due dates and reminders, stored in a file called tasks.json.
• Your settings: which ornament you picked, the motion style, thread, size, where it hangs, sound and volume.
• Your own picture, emoji or GIF, if you hang one. It is stored on your machine and used only to draw the ornament.
• Your calendar link, if you add one (HangLine Pro). The link you paste stays on your computer. The app downloads your calendar straight from Google, Outlook or Apple, the way any calendar app does, and your events are never sent to us.
• Your sign-in session, protected by your operating system's own secure storage (Keychain on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows). Where there is no such storage (on some Linux systems), the app keeps only what it needs to sign you in again, in a file that only your user account on that computer can open.

You can find and delete all of it yourself:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/HangLine
• Windows: %APPDATA%\HangLine
• Linux: ~/.config/HangLine

2. What we hold when you make an account

• Your email address, and your name if you chose to enter one.
• Your password, if you set one. It is handled and stored by our authentication provider in scrambled form. We never see it and cannot read it.
• Google sign-in is optional. If you use it, Google confirms your email address and name to us. We do not receive your Google password, contacts, or anything else from your Google account.
• Your country, worked out from the network (IP) address of your latest sign-in with DB-IP's free country list, which sits in our own database (nothing is sent to DB-IP). Only the two-letter country is kept with your account, never a city or the address itself. We use it to see how many of our users are in each country. If you use a VPN, it is the VPN's country.

HangLine Pro and payments

HangLine Pro is one payment. Lemon Squeezy (on this website) or Apple (in the Mac App Store copy) takes the payment and handles your card details; we never see them. We keep the order number, the amount, the date and which account it unlocked, and from Lemon Squeezy also the email on the receipt and the country it reports, so Pro stays on the right account and a refund can take it back. To show the price in your own money, this website asks our server which country your visit comes from; that answer is not stored.

Invites

Every account has an invite code. If you joined with someone's code, we keep who invited you and whether your first computer has signed in, because that is when they get a month of Pro. So that nobody can invite themselves, we check that computer's random device ID (section 3): a computer that already signed in with another account does not count. Your invite link shows your first name to whoever opens it. Whoever invited you sees how many friends joined, never who.

3. What the app sends when it checks your licence

So that one account cannot be used on unlimited machines, the app registers each computer. It sends:

• A device ID: a random code the app makes up the first time it runs. It is not derived from your hardware and cannot identify your machine to anyone else.
• Your computer's name: whatever your machine is called, so you can recognise it in your account list and sign it out.
• The platform and processor type, for example macOS on Apple Silicon.
• The app version you are running.

That is the whole list. The app does not send your tasks, your ornament, your files, your screen, your location, or anything you type. If your computer is offline, HangLine keeps working normally for up to 14 days before it needs to check again.

We also count how many computers use HangLine each day. The first check-in of the day adds your computer to that day's count; later check-ins the same day don't add it again. That day's record keeps only the platform, the app version and a code made with a key we delete when the day ends, so afterwards it can't be traced back to your computer or linked to any other day. It has no account, no computer name and no device ID in it. We keep these daily records for up to 400 days.

From version 0.8.0 the app also says “still on” every five minutes while it runs, with the app version and how many seconds since your keyboard or mouse was last touched (one number, not what you did). Newer versions also say whether the ornament is on screen or hidden. That lets our admin page show how many computers have HangLine open, and hanging, at that moment. It carries nothing about what you were doing, and all it changes is the “last seen” time and those two values on your computer's entry in your account, the same entry you can see and sign out.

4. Downloads and updates

Installers and update checks are served by GitHub. When you press Download, or when the app looks for a new version, GitHub receives that request including your IP address, the same as visiting any website. We do not receive a copy of it.

Updates. A copy downloaded from hanglineapp.com checks GitHub, where the installers are published, for a new version. When there is one, it downloads it in the background and installs it when you close the app, when your computer sleeps or locks, or after 30 minutes without use. Copies from the Mac App Store or the Microsoft Store are updated by their store instead.

Switches. The app also reads a small settings file from HangLine’s server that says which of its features are turned on. It is an ordinary public file, read the same way as the ornament catalogue, and nothing about you is sent with that request.

5. The ornament library and announcements

The app fetches two small files from our storage so that new ornaments and announcements can reach you without a new version: the ornament catalogue and the notice list. Both are ordinary public files, read the same way a browser reads a web page. It happens when the app starts, when you open Settings, when your computer wakes and every 20 minutes in between. Which announcements you have already read is written on your own computer, next to your settings, and is never uploaded. We do count how far an announcement reached. When one is shown, opened, or its button clicked, the app reports that once — the announcement, one of those three words, and a random id made on your computer the first time it reports anything. That id is used for nothing else and is deliberately not the device id your account knows about, so these are counts of computers, never of people. Your account is not recorded with them.

Likes and polls. In HangLine 0.7.0 and newer you can like an ornament with a heart, and answer a poll we run. The app sends your choice with a random id made on your computer for votes only: it is not your device ID, not the id used for announcement reach, and your account is not sent or stored with it. Each computer has one like per ornament and one vote per poll, and can take it back or change it. Everyone using the app sees how many people like each ornament, never who, and we only ever see totals too. Your own likes are also kept on your computer, so the app can show them.

Ads on the ornament

Until you buy HangLine Pro, now and then an ad may appear on your screen for a few seconds: hanging on the thread in place of your ornament, or sliding out of the thread to one side (a picture, or a card with a short message) and back inside it. From HangLine 1.10.0 this includes the free month and trials of Pro; once you have bought Pro, you see no ads. An ad never appears during a focus session. Which ad you get can depend on the day and hour on your computer, the app's language, where you got the app (our website, the Mac App Store or the Microsoft Store) and your computer's system: the app works that out on your computer and sends none of it to us or to the advertiser. The ad's picture, video or small page is downloaded from our own storage, like the ornament catalogue, and is not allowed to load anything from anywhere else. We count how many times each ad was shown and clicked, per computer, with a random ID made only for this: it is not your device ID and is never linked to your account. Our own ads use no ad network, set no cookie, and nothing follows you across apps or websites. Clicking an ad opens the advertiser's page in your browser; from there, their own privacy policy applies.

Ads from an advertising network, and its cookies

Some of those ad turns can carry an ad from an advertising network instead of one of ours. It comes through a small page on our own website, ads.hanglineapp.com/ad-slot (an address of its own, kept apart from the rest of our website), which the app shows for about a minute, sliding out of the thread or hanging on it. The network’s script runs inside that ad box only and decides what to show there. It never sees your account, your tasks or anything else in the app. The Mac App Store copy of HangLine never shows it, and no ads show once you have bought Pro.

Cookies. That script sets its own cookies and similar identifiers inside the ad box, the way it would on any website, to choose and count ads. So the app shows partner ads only after you say yes: the first time one is due, a card beside the ornament asks (Allow / No thanks). Say no, or say nothing, and you only ever see our own ads, which set no cookie. You can change your answer at any time in the app under Settings → Behaviour → Ads from partners; turning it off deletes those cookies from the app.

What the network receives is what any web page sends about its visitor: your IP address (from which it may work out a rough location), the browser details of the app’s ad box, the size of that box, and its own cookie. It receives nothing from us: not your account, your name, your tasks, your device ID or the random number our own ad counting uses. Clicking its ad opens the advertiser in your browser, where their own policy applies. How long the network keeps what it collects is set out in its own privacy policy, linked below.

The networks we use: none at the moment.

The Feed

In HangLine from 28 September 2026 on, the Feed shows posts from us: text, pictures, videos, links and polls. Anyone using the app can read them and like them. To comment, you make a small profile: a username, your profession, your year of birth, and your city and country. Everyone using the app sees your username, profession and city next to your comments. Your year of birth is used only to check that you are 13 or older and is never shown, and your email address is never shown either.

We store your profile, your comments, your likes, the comments you report and the people you block, on HangLine’s servers. You can delete your own comments at any time, and deleting your account deletes all of it. We read reports, can remove any comment and can stop an account from commenting. Links are not allowed in comments, and some words are refused automatically. We also note which posts you have seen, only to count how many people each post reached.

Posts from HangLine Pro members (HangLine 1.9.0, from 1 October 2026): a member with HangLine Pro and a Feed profile can post text and one picture. Before the picture is sent, the app checks that it really is the picture it says it is and draws PNG and JPEG pictures again, so that what a camera stores in the file (such as the place a photo was taken) is not sent. A post shows at once to everyone signed in to the app, with the member's username, profession and city. The picture is kept in a private store on HangLine's servers and can only be seen through the app while the post is up. Anyone can report a post; three reports hide it until we look, and we may remove any post. You can delete your own posts at any time, and their pictures are deleted with them.

Remove background (HangLine 1.9.0): when you add a picture of your own you can remove its background. This runs on your computer: the picture is not sent anywhere. The first time, the app downloads the 44 MB model it needs from hanglineapp.com (IS-Net, Apache-2.0) and keeps it in its own folder. Pictures you add are also made smaller on your computer before they are kept or shared.

The Chat (hanglineapp.com/chat)

From HangLine 1.10.0 (2 October 2026), the Chat button in the app opens the chat on our website: rooms anyone signed in can read, and private chats between two people. Writing (messages, pictures and reactions), making rooms and private chats come with HangLine Pro. The chat uses the same profile as the Feed: you must be 13 or older, and other people see your username next to what you write. Your email address is never shown to them.

What we keep, and who can read it. We store your messages and pictures, your reactions, the rooms you make or join, who you chat with privately, how far you have read (to count unread messages), and the messages you report and the people you block, on HangLine’s servers; new messages reach open chat pages live over a connection to those servers. HangLine can read every room and every private chat, including messages you deleted and messages that disappeared on a timer, to keep people safe, to act on reports, and to keep evidence if someone breaks our rules or the law. With each message we keep the username and email address of the account that sent it, also after that account is deleted.

Disappearing messages, deleting, pictures. In a private chat, either person can turn on disappearing messages (1 hour, 1 day or 7 days): after that time a message is hidden from both people, but it is not deleted, and HangLine keeps it until we delete it. When you delete one of your messages it disappears for everyone, and we keep it until we delete it. Pictures are made smaller in your browser before they are sent (which also removes what the camera stored in the file, such as the place a photo was taken), kept in private storage that only the people in that room or chat and HangLine can open, and deleted 7 days after they were sent; a picture someone reported is kept until we decide.

Keeping the chat safe. Anyone signed in can report a message; three reports hide it until we look. You can block someone: you no longer see their messages and they cannot message you privately. There are limits on how fast and how much anyone can post, links are not allowed, and some words are refused automatically. We can remove any message, pause someone’s messages, close any room and stop an account from writing.

Ads on the chat page. People who have not bought HangLine Pro see ads beside the chat: pictures from our own ad list, which set no cookies (we count views and clicks with a random number kept in your browser), and the advertising network’s box, which may use its own cookies (see above). When you open the chat page, a note at the bottom says so: press No, thanks and you only see our own ads and ads from networks that use no cookies. The chat page also remembers in your browser your language, your answer to that note and how often each ad was shown that day.

6. Sharing a hang

Pressing Share… in Settings is the one time the app uploads a picture of yours. It sends the ornament's artwork and a preview card the app draws of it hanging, along with the six values that describe the look: which ornament, thread, motion, size, thread length and how strong gravity and wind are set. It does not send your tasks, your file names, your other settings or anything else.

The link is public. Anyone who has it can open the page and see that ornament, including anyone it gets forwarded to, and it is not guessable but it is not protected either. Nothing is uploaded until you press the button, and the Settings window says which case you are in before you do. You can take a share down at any time — the link then stops working for everyone.

The Community (HangLine Pro)

Only when you press Make public does the app upload that picture, the name you give it and your Instagram handle. Before sending it, the app checks that the file really is the picture it says it is, and draws PNG and JPEG pictures again so that what a camera stores in the file (such as the place a photo was taken) is not sent; we draw it again too when we approve it. It stays private (only we can see it) until we approve it; after that, everyone using HangLine can see it in the Community with its name and your Instagram handle. You can take it down at any time, and deleting your account removes it too. Anyone signed in can report a picture, once per account: the report is kept with the account that sent it, and three reports take it off screens until we look at it.

Every uploaded picture is checked (from 9 October 2026). HangLine's server reads the first few bytes of each picture uploaded for a shared hang, the Community, the Feed or the chat, to check that it really is a PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP picture. A file that is not is deleted, and the share, Community picture, Feed post or chat picture that pointed to it stops showing. Nothing else in the file is read; we keep only a note that it was checked.

7. The suggestions & bugs board, and the contact form

If you post there, we store what you wrote: the title, the description, your comments and your votes, along with the app version and platform you were on, linked to your account. Anyone who opens the board can read what you post. It is shown with your first name (the first word of the name on your account, or “HangLine user” when there is none), never your email address, so please do not put private information in it.

The contact form. If you write to us through hanglineapp.com/contact (the app opens the same page when you choose to contact us), we store what you send: your name, your email address, the topic and your message, along with the app version and system you were on, whether you wrote from the app or the website, the page's language, and your account if you were signed in. Only we can read it, and we use it only to answer you and to see what you wrote before if you write again. It is not deleted automatically; ask us and we will delete yours. If you delete your account, your messages stay, without the link to your account. To stop floods, the server counts the messages sent from each place each day, with a one-way hash of that day's secret, the network address and the browser's description (the address itself is not kept, and the counts are deleted within a few days); after 10 messages in a day from the same place, more are refused until the next day. The form also has a hidden field that only robots fill in: a message with it filled in is dropped.

8. The website

hanglineapp.com counts visits with our website host's visitor counter, which sets no cookie at all. It saves nothing in your browser and keeps no identifier that could follow you to another website. Instead of recognising you, the host turns each request into a one-way hash and throws it away after 24 hours, so we cannot tell that the same person came back the next day. We see totals only: how many visits a page had, roughly which country they came from, what kind of device it was, and which link brought them (for example a search engine or Reddit).

Alongside it, our host's page-speed check measures how quickly pages load. It works the same way and stores nothing on your computer either.

We used Google Analytics until 6 September 2026 and removed it then. The Google tag described below, for our own ads, is the only Google measurement on this site, and only while we advertise on Google. The admin page is not measured at all, and the HangLine widget on merchants' websites and the desktop app send nothing to that visitor counter. If you sign in on the site, your session is kept in your own browser's storage so you stay signed in. That is a convenience for you, not a tracker. Our host keeps ordinary server logs, as every web host does.

The HangLine widget, on this site and on our customers' websites

The hanging ornament you see on this site is the same HangLine widget that businesses put on their own websites with HangLine for Websites. Since 26 September 2026 it also counts the website it runs on, for that website's owner (on this site, that is us). It sets no cookie. For each page it records: the page's address, the website that sent the visit and any campaign tags in the link (utm_…), the kind of device, the browser and system names, the country (from the network, or from the time zone the browser reports; never a city or an address), how long the page was on screen, and what was clicked or done on it: links and buttons (their visible text, never anything typed), forms sent (not what was in them), product views, cart and order totals, and the ornament's own events.

A visitor is counted with a one-way hash of a secret that changes every day, the website, the IP address and the browser's description. The secret is deleted when the day is over, so no one, us included, can tell that the same person came back the next day (unless that website's owner switched on returning visitors, below), or link one website's visitors to another's. The IP address and the browser's full description are never stored. The detailed records are kept for 13 months and then deleted; the website's owner sees them only as totals in their HangLine dashboard. To keep floods out of the numbers, the server also counts, per website and per day, the page views of each visitor (the same hash) and of each network address (a one-way hash of that day's secret and the IP address); past a daily limit, more page views are not counted. Made with that day's secret, these counts cannot be traced back to anyone once the day is over, and they are deleted within a few days.

The widget also looks at which other tags the page carries (for example Google Analytics or the Meta Pixel) and whether each one sends its data, so the owner can see whether their tracking works. That is a list of tag names, their public IDs and daily counts; nothing about the visitor. Since widget 2.6.0 it also counts the requests those tags send: the event's name as the platform gets it (for example PageView), the platform's address without anything after it, and whether the platform answered with an error. What a request carried is never read or kept. If a visitor fills in a card (a form), what they typed is stored for the website's owner, who sees it in their dashboard.

To remember a few things between pages, the widget keeps small notes in the visitor's own browser storage: whether the ornament was closed during this visit, how many visits this browser has made to the site (only when the owner shows a product, a test or a change to new or returning visitors only), which side of an A/B test it sees, when the ornament was last touched and last seen (so a shop can tell an order came after it), and, for the current visit only, the campaign tags and ad click identifiers the visitor arrived with (so a card filled in on a later page still knows them). These stay in the browser, except that the arrival tags go with a card the visitor sends, and an order is marked "after a click on the ornament" or "after seeing it". Clearing the site's data in the browser removes them.

Returning visitors, only on a website whose owner switches it on. The widget then keeps a random identifier in the visitor's browser storage for that one website (not a cookie) and sends it with each page view, so the owner can tell a new visitor from one who came back, and see which visit first brought a later order. It is made in the browser, it is different on every website, and it is not linked to a name or to any other website. When the owner switches it off, the browser deletes it on the next page; clearing the site's data deletes it too. Page views that carry it are kept 13 months, like the others. It is off on this site.

Leads and sales. When a visitor sends a card, the website's owner also gets the campaign tags and any ad click identifier in the link the visitor arrived with (for example gclid from Google Ads or fbclid from Meta). The owner can mark a lead as a sale, with its value, and download a file of those sales for their own Google Ads or Meta account; in that file, emails and phone numbers are hashed (SHA-256) on the owner's computer before the file is made. What the owner does with that file is up to them.

Installation check. When a website's owner presses Check now on the Install page, HangLine opens that website's public page once, to see whether the widget's code is on it. It reads nothing about the site's visitors.

Website Tag Inspector. When someone uses the free Tag Inspector on this site, HangLine opens the address they typed once, with its Google Tag Manager containers, reads which tags are in their code and shows the result. It keeps no copy of that page and no record of the address. To hold the limit of 20 checks a day, it counts checks per day against a one-way hash of the IP address and the browser's description, made with a secret that changes every day (the IP address itself is not stored); those counts are deleted after two days.

Creative QA. When someone checks an ad with the free Creative QA page on this site, the banner file is opened and run in their own browser and is never sent to us. HangLine opens only the web addresses in it or typed next to it (a landing page and its redirects, tracking addresses, a VAST tag, the first bytes of a video file), once each, to see how they answer; the tracking addresses only if the person leaves that box ticked. It keeps no copy and no record of the file or the addresses. To hold the limit of 300 calls a day, it counts them the same way as the Tag Inspector (a one-way hash made with a secret that changes every day; the IP address itself is not stored), and deletes the counts after two days.

Heatmaps, only on a website whose owner switches them on, and only for visitors who say yes: the widget asks each visitor first, in a small box, and remembers the answer in that browser; on a website with its own cookie banner, it follows the visitor's analytics choice there instead. This site uses heatmaps and asks you too. With heatmaps on, the widget counts where on a page visitors click and move the mouse (as a small square inside the element they pointed at, not as a trail), how far each page view was scrolled and how long each part of the page was on screen; and, at most once a week for each page, it takes a picture of the page (a copy of its layout and visible text) in one visitor's browser, so the owner can see the heat over it. Typed text is never taken (every field is blanked), e-mail addresses and long numbers (phones, order or card numbers) are replaced by stars, and any part of a page the owner marks with data-hl-hide is left out. Account, checkout, cart, log-in and similar pages are never pictured, and neither is a visitor whose browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track. The pictures are kept in private storage that only the website's owner and their team can open, and are deleted after 30 days; the click counts are kept 400 days. Session recordings (a replay of a visit: its pages, scrolling, mouse and clicks) are switched off for every website since 6 October 2026: no website can turn them on, and nothing new is recorded. The 85 visits recorded on this site on 30 September and 1 October 2026 stay in the same private storage until their 30 days end, and are all deleted by 31 October 2026. You can change your answer at any time: change my recording choice, or clear this site's data in your browser.

Rage clicks, dead clicks, forms and errors. Since widget 2.8.0 it also notes, on every website it counts: three quick clicks in one spot (a rage click) and a click on something that did nothing (a dead click), with the element's visible text (left out if it holds an e-mail address or a long number); a form being started and a form left unfinished, with the form's name and the name of the last field touched, never what was typed; and JavaScript errors on the page (the error's message, with e-mail addresses and long numbers starred, and the script's file name and line). These are kept like the other page records, 13 months.

Site speed and excess scrolling. Since widget 2.12.0 it also notes, on every website it counts, once per page load: how fast the page loaded and answered (Core Web Vitals: the time until the main content showed, the slowest response to a click or tap, how much the layout moved, and the time until the server answered), and whether the visitor scrolled up and down many times in a few seconds (how far down the page, in %). These are timings from the visitor's browser, nothing typed or seen on the page, and they are kept like the other page records, 13 months. With heatmaps on, the elements a page view clicked are kept with that page view for 90 days, so the owner can see which elements go with orders.

Tests and personalisation, only on a website whose owner sets them up (there are none on this site). When the owner tests two or more versions of a page, HangLine picks the version a visitor sees and the widget remembers it in the visitor's own browser storage for that website, so they see the same version on every page. For each test, HangLine keeps the version a visitor saw on a day, with the same daily visitor hash as a page view, so the owner can compare how often each version reached their goal; these are kept 400 days. To choose a version, a product or a change, HangLine uses only what the page view already tells it: the country (from the network, or from the time zone), the kind of device, the language the browser is set to, whether this is the visitor's first visit (from the visit count in their browser, described above), and the site and campaign they came from. The language is used at that moment and not stored. A limit such as "at most 3 times a day" is counted in the visitor's own browser, from the times the product was shown; that count never leaves the browser.

Ad trackers and ad accounts, only on a website whose owner sets them up (there are none on this site). Since widget 2.10.0 a product on the ornament can carry up to three tracking addresses from the owner's ad server (for example Campaign Manager 360), which the visitor's browser calls once when the product is seen or clicked; those companies may set their own cookies, under their own privacy policies. A step can also go to the owner's Google Ads conversion or Floodlight activity, through the Google tag on the page. When the owner's site waits for its cookie banner, none of these is called before the visitor says yes. The widget also reads IAB TCF banners, and it can wait only for visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, told from the country described above. If the owner asks for it, the widget passes the visitor's answer to the site's own Google tags (Google Consent Mode). HangLine itself still sets no cookie. An owner can also download their leads as a customer list for their ads: the emails and phone numbers in that file are hashed (SHA-256) on the owner's own computer, and HangLine sends nothing to the ad platforms.

HangLine ads, only for ads a website's owner makes in HangLine (there are none on this site). When such an ad is shown on another website through its tag, it runs in a frame of its own from hanglineapp.com and tells HangLine that it was loaded, on which website and page (the address without anything after ? or #), whether it was on screen and for how long, whether the visitor pointed at it, touched it or played it, and the ad's own counters. HangLine opens each new page an ad runs on once, to look for a short list of words the owner does not want next to the ad. It looks for signs of automated traffic (a known robot, a browser run by a program, more than 30 impressions or 5 clicks from one visitor in a day); for that it counts the visitor with the same daily one-way hash as above, and deletes those counts after two days. A click goes through HangLine to the advertiser's page, with a random click id in the address; the HangLine widget on that page keeps the id for that visit only (session storage, not a cookie), so the visit and any order or form sent can be counted for the ad. Click ids are deleted after 90 days. HangLine sets no cookies; third-party trackers the owner adds to an ad are called from the visitor's browser and may set their own.

AI suggestions and ad spend (website dashboard, from 1 October 2026). If a website's owner asks for AI suggestions, their own browser sends that website's totals for the chosen days (pages, sources, events, shop, speed and frustration numbers, never a single visit) straight to the AI company they pick (for example Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or xAI, or another service whose address they enter), with their own API key. HangLine does not receive the key, the question or the answer; the key stays in that browser only if they ask it to be remembered. Ad spend that an owner pastes (date, source, amount) is kept with the website for 400 days to show return on ad spend.

Search & AI (website dashboard, from 8 October 2026). Site audit: when a website's owner, or someone on their team who can see Numbers, starts an audit, HangLine reads that website's own public pages (up to 100 on the free plan, 500 on a paid plan) under the name HangLine-Audit/1, and skips every page the site's robots.txt keeps it out of. It also reads the site's robots.txt, llms.txt and sitemap, and checks how the site answers on http, on www and for a page that does not exist. It reads nothing about the site's visitors. The report (each page's address, title, description, headings, links, word count, most used words and the problems found) is kept with the website; only the 10 newest reports are kept. Search & AI visits and Keywords are totals made from the page records described above (the website that sent each visit) and from the words visitors typed into the website's own search box, which the widget notes as a search event. AI visibility: if the owner checks how AI assistants answer questions about their business, their own browser sends the questions they type straight to the AI company they pick, with their own API key, as for AI suggestions; HangLine does not receive the key. The questions, the answers, the websites each answer named and the brand and competitor names the owner typed are saved with the website, so the owner can compare over time; only the 50 newest checks are kept.

WhatsApp chats and delivered orders (website dashboard and widget 2.13.0, from 1 October 2026). If a website's owner switches on the WhatsApp reference, a click on a WhatsApp link on their website adds a short code such as (Ref: HL-7KQ2M) to the end of the visitor's message, which the visitor can see and remove before sending. HangLine notes the click (the code, the WhatsApp number of the business that was clicked, the page view it came from) and any ad click IDs from the visit's landing address (gclid, gbraid, wbraid, fbclid, ttclid, ScCid); it never reads the chat. The website's people may mark what the chat became (a real chat, a sale and its amount, or not a customer) and may type the customer's number, which their browser turns into a SHA-256 hash before it is saved; HangLine never receives the number. An owner may also upload their store's or courier's order statuses: HangLine keeps only the order number, its status (delivered, refused or pending), the city and the amount; emails and phone numbers in that file stay in the owner's browser. All of this is kept for 400 days. If the owner sets up their own ad accounts (Meta, TikTok, Snapchat), their browser sends these results to those companies with the owner's own tokens, matched by hashed phone numbers and emails and by the ad click IDs; events for TikTok pass through HangLine's relay on the way (TikTok does not accept them from a browser) and are not stored there. Each of those companies handles them under its own terms and privacy policy.

Our own ads: Meta and Google

When we advertise HangLine on Meta (Facebook, Instagram) or Google, this website loads their tags, the Meta Pixel and the Google tag, through the HangLine widget, so we can see which ads led to something: a download of the app (and which one: Mac, Windows or Linux), a click on Start free for HangLine for Websites, or a new free account adding its first website in the dashboard. They load on this site's public pages, and on the dashboard only at that moment; never in the desktop app, and never on the account or admin pages. Meta and Google set their own cookies and receive what any of their tags receives: the page's address, your browser's details and IP address, and the event. What they do with it is covered by Meta's and Google's own privacy policies. You can block them with your browser's tracker protection or an ad blocker, and control ad personalisation in your Meta and Google account settings. We switch a tag on only while we use it for our ads.

9. Who else can see anything

That is the complete list. We do not sell or rent your information, and apart from the ad measurement above we do not share it with anyone except where the law requires it.

10. How long it is kept

Your account details and device list are kept while your account exists. Delete your account and they go with it. Posts and comments on the suggestions board are kept while they are useful to other users. If you delete your account they stay, without your name or email; ask us and we will remove yours. Messages sent through the contact form are kept until we delete them (section 7). Everything stored on your own computer stays there until you delete it or uninstall the app. Website numbers counted by the HangLine widget are kept for 13 months.

A payment record (order number, amount, date and receipt email) is kept for our books even after the account it unlocked is deleted.

Chat messages, private chats and the username and email kept with them stay until HangLine deletes them: also after you delete a message, after it disappears on a timer, and after you delete your account. We delete them when they are no longer needed, for example to free space, and you can ask us to delete yours (we may keep what we need as evidence of a breach of our rules or the law). Chat pictures are deleted 7 days after they were sent, unless reported.

11. What you can do

• Sign a computer out: open your account and remove any device from the list.
• Delete your account: in the app, Settings → Account → Delete account; or on the website, your account → Delete account. Both show what is attached to the account before anything is removed, and you type DELETE to confirm. You can also email us and we will do it. This deletes your account, your device list, your shared hangs, your Community pictures, your Feed profile, posts, comments and likes, your invites, and your HangLine for Websites sites with what was counted for them; the picture files of your shared hangs, Community pictures and Feed posts are then removed from storage (normally within a day); the app also clears the tasks and settings on that computer. What stays: your chat messages and private chats, with the username and email they were sent with, until we delete them (section 5); your posts and comments on the suggestions board (without your name or email), your contact-form messages (without the link to your account), and the payment record for our books (section 2).
• Ask what we hold: email us and we will send you a copy.
• Correct something: email us, or change it in your account.
• Wipe the local side: delete the folder listed in section 1, or uninstall the app.
• Say no to partner ads: in the app, Settings → Behaviour → Ads from partners. Off deletes the network’s cookies; you then see only our own ads, or none with Pro.
• In the chat: delete your own messages, report messages, block people, turn on disappearing messages in a private chat, and say No, thanks to partner ads in the note at the bottom of the chat page (to see that note again, clear this website’s data in your browser). To have your chat messages deleted, email us.

12. Children

HangLine is not aimed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect anything from them. If you believe a child has made an account, email us and we will remove it.

In the Feed, anyone younger than 13 can read posts and like them but cannot comment: the year of birth asked for when making a Feed profile is there to check this.

The chat on our website is for people 13 or older too: the year of birth in the profile checks it, and nobody younger can write there.

13. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change actually affects what we collect or who sees it, we will say so on this page rather than quietly editing it.

2 October 2026: this page now also describes the contact form, Zoho (the service that sends our email), and deleting your account in the app or on the website, with what stays afterwards. HangLine already worked this way; the page had left these out.

2 October 2026 (HangLine 1.10.0): ads now stop once you buy HangLine Pro, and the free month and trials of Pro see them. An ad, or a card with a short message, can now also slide out of the thread to one side and back inside it, and which ad you get can depend on the day, the hour, the app's language, where you got the app and your computer's system, all worked out on your computer (section 5).

2 October 2026 (HangLine 1.10.0): the Feed button in the app became the Chat, which opens hanglineapp.com/chat. This page now describes the chat: what we keep, that HangLine can read rooms and private chats and keeps messages with the sender’s username and email until we delete them, disappearing messages, pictures kept 7 days, and the ads on the chat page.

3 October 2026: section 2 now says that we keep the country of each account, worked out from the network address of its latest sign-in.

7 October 2026: session recordings are switched off for every website (since 6 October 2026). Section 8 now describes heatmaps only, and says when the recordings made on this site before then are deleted (by 31 October 2026).

8 October 2026: section 8 now describes the new Search & AI pages of the website dashboard: the site audit, which reads the website's own public pages and follows its robots.txt, and the AI visibility check, whose questions and answers are kept with the website (the 50 newest).

9 October 2026: after a security review. The suggestions board shows your first name only (and this page now says, correctly, that anyone who opens the board can read it); the contact form has a daily limit per sender; every uploaded picture is checked, and Community and Feed pictures are drawn again before they leave your computer; reporting a Community picture needs a sign-in; deleting your account also removes its picture files from storage; the sign-in library now comes from our own website instead of esm.sh; partner ads come from ads.hanglineapp.com; the website's page-view counting has daily limits against floods; and section 1 says how the app keeps your sign-in on a system without secure storage.

9 October 2026: the Chat, the Feed and the suggestions board are closed. Nobody can read or write in them any more, on this website or in the app, and no new messages, posts, comments, votes or pictures can be sent there; ideas and problems now come to us through the contact form. What was already stored stays under the rules described above. To ask about it, email us.

14. Credits and licences

Some of the ornaments that ship with HangLine are drawn from Microsoft Fluent Emoji, used under the MIT licence. The licence notice is reproduced below, as MIT requires. Ornaments we draw ourselves, and any picture you hang yourself, are not covered by it.

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: the above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

15. Contact

HangLine is made by RevCodeLabs. For anything on this page (a question, a deletion request, or a copy of your data) email support@hanglineapp.com and we will get back to you.

HangLine is a desktop app, not a service that watches you work. If any part of this page does not match what the app actually does, that is a bug. Tell us and we will fix the app or fix the page.