catchroll

Privacy & Data Use

Last updated: 14 October 2026 · Describes build 1.1.0

The short version

catchroll has no server, no account and no analytics. It sends nothing off your device. Your captures, with their page address, title and text, are kept in Chrome’s storage on your device. The files and text you add to the canvas stay in the canvas tab until you save them. What you save goes to files on your own disk, and it leaves the machine only when you move a file yourself.

This website sets no cookies, uses no analytics, and loads nothing from anyone else.

What catchroll stores, and where

  • The capture roll: your most recent captures, up to ten and trimmed to 50 MB of pictures in all (the newest is always kept), each with its picture, the page’s address and title, and any text captured with it. It is kept in Chrome’s local extension storage (chrome.storage.local) on your device until a newer capture pushes it out, you delete it, or you press CLEAR ALL.
  • A scroll capture in progress: while a scroll capture runs, each finished part (its picture, the page’s text, address and title) is kept in the same local storage, so a capture interrupted by navigating away can be finished or resumed from the popup. The parts are removed once the capture is finished or discarded, and the parts of a capture started more than 24 hours ago are removed when you next open the popup.
  • The hand-off to the canvas: two short-lived keys in Chrome’s session storage: the ids of captures waiting to open on the canvas, and the canvas tab’s id. Neither holds a capture.
  • The board you are working on: its tiles, marks and pictures live in the canvas tab’s memory until the tab closes, unless you save it. A copy you make with Ctrl+C is also kept in that tab’s memory, so you can paste it into another board there; it is gone when the tab closes or reloads.
  • Your save folder: catchroll remembers which Catchroll save folder you picked (the folder handle only, no file contents), so you don’t have to pick it again. Chrome may ask you to allow access again in a new browser session.
  • Files you save or export: written to your own disk: in the Catchroll folder you picked, in Downloads/Catchroll, or back into a board file you opened or picked yourself. They are yours.

Nothing is synced or sent anywhere.

Page text, and what redaction removes

A capture keeps the page’s text with its picture so an AI can read it. A capture includes what sits inside your frame, even text behind an overlay in that area, so close floating chat and message windows before you capture. Element and Transcript tell you before they capture when their text includes characters the picture doesn’t show. Only your own click or key answers that prompt; a page built to mislead can still restyle or cover it, so read it with care (see the security position).

Redaction destroys the pixels and removes the saved text and the source pointer from every file you save or export.

Redacting any part of a tile removes all of that tile’s saved text and its source, no matter how it got onto the canvas. The picture keeps everything outside the blacked-out area, so an AI given the .catchroll or a PNG can still read what’s visible; the .md has no pictures, so it shows that tile as withheld.

Redaction changes the tile on the canvas and every file you save from it afterwards. A copy you made or a file you saved before redacting keeps the original, and the popup’s roll keeps each capture as it was taken until it leaves the roll. Redaction’s other limits are in the security position; see also how we built it.

The clipboard

catchroll asks for no clipboard permission. It reads the clipboard only inside a paste you make (Ctrl+V on the canvas or in a text box), and writes it only when you copy: Ctrl+C, COPY PNG, COPY PATH, or the popup’s copy button.

Connecting a folder for your library

catchroll can connect to a folder you choose, so you can browse your saved .catchroll boards in its LIBRARY and open them again.

Why it exists, before what it is: your saved canvases are how you remember what you’ve built. Filenames don’t do that; recognizing your own boards does. Connect your library folder and you can load your way through your saved canvases (load, load, load) until you see the one you’re after, then keep building on it. It’s the same reason a pinboard works: you find what you made by looking at it.

It’s worth being clear about what that access is and isn’t:

  • You pick the folder through your browser’s own file picker. catchroll gets access to only that folder and what is inside it: not your whole computer, not your other files, not any folder you didn’t choose.
  • The access is granted by you and mediated by your browser.
  • catchroll remembers your chosen save folder so it doesn’t have to ask every time you save. The library access (for listing your boards) is held only while the canvas tab is open, and is asked for again next time.
  • It is read access, on your device. catchroll reads that folder to list your boards and open them; saving asks for write access separately. Nothing in it is copied off your device or sent anywhere.

Permissions, and why each one exists

Chrome requires an extension to declare every capability it uses. Here is the complete list catchroll requests, five in all, and the reason for each:

  • activeTab: catchroll runs only when you invoke it: the toolbar popup or one of its three keyboard shortcuts. activeTab gives it temporary access to that tab, under that gesture, so it can capture the page you asked it to capture and run its capture script there. It is catchroll’s only access to web pages.
  • scripting: injects catchroll’s capture scripts into the tab you invoked it in: to run a capture, to show the end-of-capture notice in that tab, and to continue an interrupted scroll capture when you press RESUME HERE in the popup. Without it the Region, Element, Transcript, Scroll Column and Paged Scroll captures cannot run.
  • storage: keeps the capture roll, the parts of a scroll capture in progress, and the two hand-off keys described above, on your device.
  • unlimitedStorage: full-page captures are large, and Chrome’s default local storage quota is too small for them. This permission raises the on-device limit so that the roll’s own caps (ten captures, 50 MB of pictures) and the saved parts of a scroll capture in progress are the real limits. It is a local-disk permission, not a network one.
  • downloads: writes the files you ask for to your Downloads folder: PNGs (saved from the popup, or EXPORT PNG on the canvas), the Markdown file from EXPORT FOR AI, and a .catchroll canvas file from SAVE or EXPORT SELECTION when no Catchroll save folder is in use or it can’t be written to. SHOW FILE uses it to show you a file catchroll has just written there.

And one thing the list does not contain: host permissions. None are requested. catchroll has no standing access to any website, and no access to a tab you have not invoked it in. It does not read pages in the background and does not watch your browsing.

What catchroll does not do

  • It does not create an account or ask you to sign in.
  • It does not set cookies or use analytics, on this website or in the extension.
  • It does not phone home, check in, or report usage.
  • It does not send, sync, or back up your captures to any server.

Third parties

There are no third-party services: no external fonts or CDNs and no trackers, in the extension or on this website. catchroll’s code is all packaged in the extension, including two third-party libraries: fflate 0.8.3 (MIT; reads and writes ZIP files, including .docx and .xlsx) and pdf.js 6.3.289 (Apache-2.0, with its bundled fonts, character maps and decoders; shows the pages of a PDF you add). Neither is fetched at runtime.

Changes

Build 1.1.0, 14 October 2026. The previous version on the Chrome Web Store was 1.0.49. Since then:

  • The clipboardWrite permission is gone, and a finished capture is no longer copied to your clipboard automatically. catchroll now reads the clipboard inside a paste you make, as described above. If you still have 1.0.49 installed, it copies each capture automatically until Chrome updates it.
  • You can bring your own files onto the canvas (images, PDFs, Word, Excel and text files) and add text boxes. They live on the board and in the files you save; they are not added to the capture roll.
  • The parts of an interrupted scroll capture are kept on your device until you finish or discard it, as described above.
  • Blur now destroys the pixels across its whole box. In 1.0.49 the original could still show through near the edges of a blurred box.

If this policy changes again, the updated version will be posted here at this same address (catchroll.com/privacy), which is a permanent link.

Contact

Questions about privacy or data use: privacy@catchroll.com.