Documentation

Privacy

Your diaries and photos live only in your browser on your device — what that means in practice, and the few things that do use the network

Snipbook never sees your diaries and the photos you add.

Where your diary actually lives

Every diary, every page, every photo you place — it's all stored in your own browser's storage, on your device. When you create a page or drop a photo, that data is never sent anywhere, it's yours. Nobody else — including Snipbook developers — can read what's on your pages.

This is also why the app works offline: your diary is already on the device.

The flip side of local-only

Because your diary lives only on this device, it only exists on this device. Clear your browser's site data, uninstall the app, or lose the device, and the diary goes with it — there's no copy sitting on a server to restore from.

Two things help here. First, installing Snipbook as an app makes the browser far less likely to quietly evict its storage under disk pressure. Second, and more directly: you can export a diary as a .snipbook file — a single file containing every page, every element, and the full-resolution bytes of every photo and image you used, so it's a real standalone backup. You can save that file wherever you keep backups, and import it again later, on this device or another, to get the diary back. Right now this export/import is something you do yourself; it isn't automatic.

What does touch the network

Four parts of Snipbook talk to a server, and each is narrow:

Store and Inspo. Browsing the Store's collection of photos and stickers needs a connection, since the images and Inspo pages live on a server and are downloaded on demand. When you look at or pick up an item from the Store or Inspo page, the server sees which item was requested. If you're signed in, the request is also identified with your account. Once you've pocketed a snippet, it's saved to your device and available offline from then on.
Your account, if you sign in. Signing in with Google unlocks premium items in the Store. Google tells Snipbook your email address and confirms it's yours.
Usage data. Snipbook reports minimal usage data. This data never includes your diaries or any files from your device — they're private.

Nothing else leaves your device. Snipbook never requests your diary content, whether or not you open the Store or sign in.

Deactivating your account

The account window has a Deactivate account button. It signs you out everywhere and stops the account from unlocking anything; your diaries stay on your device. Signing in again with the same Google account brings the account back, plan included. To have your email address and account completely deleted, write to contact@snipbook.app.

Cloud sync (coming soon)

Syncing diaries across your own devices isn't built yet — it's planned. When it ships, the intent is that your data is encrypted on your device, using a key only you hold, before anything is uploaded — a server would store only that encrypted data, never a readable copy, and only your own devices would be able to unlock it. Until then, a diary lives only on the device that made it, and moving it elsewhere means exporting and importing the file yourself, as described above.