Privacy Policy

What we collect

Nothing. PolyTube has no servers, no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting. The maintainers cannot see who installed the extension, which videos you watch, or what you translate.

What stays on your device

The extension uses chrome.storage.local (per-profile, per-machine) for:

• LLM provider configuration (preset choice, API key, base URL).
• Target language preference.
• Glossary entries you add in Options.
• Subtitle appearance settings (font size, color, position, opacity).
• Whether you have dismissed the one-time hotkey tip.

On-device cache (IndexedDB)

You can wipe all of this from the “Cache & backup” section of the Options page.

• Cached YouTube caption transcripts (so re-opening a video does not re-fetch them).
• Cached translations (so re-opening a video does not re-translate it).

What the extension sends over the network

Neither PolyTube nor its maintainers ever see, proxy, or log these requests.

• YouTube caption files — fetched directly from https://www.youtube.com/api/timedtext over HTTPS, only for the video you are watching.
• Translation requests — sent directly from your browser to the LLM provider you configured (e.g. Anthropic, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Groq, or a custom HTTPS endpoint you trust). The request includes the caption text and your API key.
• All endpoints are restricted to HTTPS by the extension manifest. There is no fallback to plain HTTP.

What the extension does NOT do

• Does not read or modify pages other than YouTube watch pages.
• Does not collect identifiers, cookies, or browser fingerprints.
• Does not embed third-party analytics, ad SDKs, or trackers.
• Does not transmit your API key anywhere except the LLM endpoint you selected.

Third-party providers

When you configure a provider, your translation traffic is governed by that provider's privacy policy (Anthropic, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Groq…). PolyTube cannot influence what those providers retain. Review their policies before sharing sensitive content.

Exporting and importing settings

The Options page can export your settings to JSON for backup. The export always strips API keys — you must re-paste the key after importing on a new machine. This prevents accidentally sharing the key by sending a settings file.

Children's data

PolyTube does not knowingly process data from anyone, including children. Because it has no servers, there is no profile to delete.

Changes to this policy

Material changes will be announced via a banner in the Options page. The “Last updated” date above always reflects the version included with the extension you are running.

Contact

For any questions, please email support@polytube.app.