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Privacy

Privacy policy.

Last updated 19 October 2026. This policy covers the Bytopsy programs and this website, bytopsy.com.

This program will not transfer any information to other networked systems unless specifically requested by the user or the person installing or operating it.

The Bytopsy program has no telemetry, no analytics, no account and no ads. It sends nothing about you, your PC or your disks anywhere. What it learns about your disks stays on your PC.

The update check

This is Bytopsy's only network connection of its own. It happens only when you turned on Check for updates daily (asked once, off until you say yes), chose Check for updates now, or ran bytopsy-cli --check-update.

  • Bytopsy fetches https://bytopsy.com/update.json and, if that doesn't answer, https://github.com/N604K/Bytopsy/releases/latest/download/update.json: a small file naming the latest version.
  • The request carries only what any download does: your IP address and Bytopsy/<version> as the user agent. No cookies and no identifiers.
  • Only if you then choose Update does it download the release zip from the project's GitHub releases. The update file is signed and names the zip's SHA-256, so nothing else can be installed this way.
  • Connections use HTTPS only and your Windows proxy settings.

What happens on your PC

To do its job, Bytopsy reads the names, sizes, dates and attributes of what you scan, and file contents only where a feature needs them: hashes to find duplicates, image pixels to find similar photos, and browsers' cookie and history databases for those two cleanup categories (cookies are counted per site, never read out). It also reads Windows information such as installed programs, startup entries, services, scheduled tasks, disk health and, for driver updates, your devices' hardware ids and your PC's maker and model. None of this leaves your PC.

Everything Bytopsy writes (settings, scan history, the delete journal, your rules and logs) lives in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Bytopsy, or in Bytopsy-data next to the program in portable mode. Deleting that folder removes it. The full list of files is in the README's privacy section.

Services and programs used on your request

Some features hand work to other software when you ask for them. Bytopsy sends nothing itself, but these services have their own privacy policies:

  • GitHub hosts the releases and the fallback update file. When you download Bytopsy or an update, GitHub receives the request as it does for any download. See the GitHub General Privacy Statement.
  • Windows Update: Check Windows Update in Drivers asks Windows' own Windows Update service, which contacts Microsoft (or your organization's update server) exactly as Settings does.
  • winget: the app updates filter runs winget, which contacts its sources (the winget community repository and the Microsoft Store) to list and download updates.

Microsoft's handling of that data is described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement. Other programs Bytopsy can start for you, such as an app's own uninstaller, a game launcher, Docker or a graphics vendor's driver tool, behave as they always do and follow their makers' policies.

This website

  • Analytics are opt-in. The first time you visit, a notice asks whether to count your visit. Until you press Accept, this site loads nothing from Google and sets no cookies. No thanks keeps it that way, and your choice is stored only in your browser. Analytics settings in the footer reopens the notice.
  • If you accept, the site uses Google Analytics 4 to count page views, which pages help, where visitors come from and which downloads are clicked. Google sets cookies (_ga) and receives your IP address, browser and the pages you view, under the Google Privacy Policy. IP anonymization is on. The data is used to improve this site and is not sold. Google Analytics is not used for advertising.
  • To opt out after accepting, press Analytics settings and choose No thanks, or clear this site's data in your browser. Google also offers a browser add-on that blocks Analytics everywhere.
  • Fonts and images are served from bytopsy.com itself, so visiting the site contacts no other company unless you accept analytics.
  • Like any web server, the server hosting bytopsy.com, and the content delivery network in front of it, may record standard request details (IP address, time, the page asked for and the browser's user agent) to keep the site running and secure. They are not used to identify or profile visitors and are not sold.
  • When the Bytopsy app checks for updates, its request for update.json reaches this server with the details above. The server fetches the file from GitHub without passing any of them on.
  • Links to GitHub and other sites take you to those sites, under their own policies.

Changes and questions

Changes to this policy are published on this page with a new date. Questions are welcome as a GitHub issue.