Privacy and local data
What DeskDrawer stores, what it transmits, and the specific list of things it does not contain.
The short version: DeskDrawer stores your board layout on your own machine and sends nothing anywhere.
What is stored, and where#
| Data | Where | Leaves your device? |
|---|---|---|
| Boards, geometry, preferences | config.json, locally | No |
| Which icon belongs to which board | config.json, locally | No |
| Unexpected internal errors | error.log, locally | No |
| Anything else | Not stored | — |
What DeskDrawer does not contain#
Stated precisely, because a vague privacy claim is worth nothing:
- No analytics SDK
- No Telemetry of any kind
- No crash or error reporting service
- No update checker of its own — updating is the Microsoft Store's job
- No account system, sign-in or licence phone-home
- No advertising identifier, and no ads
- No bundled plugins or extensions
- No network connections initiated by the application at all
That last line is the one that makes the others verifiable rather than promised. An application that makes no outbound connections cannot be exfiltrating anything, and you can check that claim yourself with any firewall or network monitor.
What DeskDrawer can see, by necessity#
It reads your desktop folder — that is the product. It resolves icons through the Windows shell, and it asks the shell for context menus and info tips. All of that is local, in-process work.
It does not read the contents of your files. It needs names, types, sizes, dates and icons; it has no reason to open a document and does not.
Purchase and licensing#
Handled by Windows and the Microsoft Store, not by the application. DeskDrawer contains no licence check that contacts a server.
Uninstalling#
The Store version's data folder is removed automatically by Windows on uninstall. For a Portable build, delete the folder yourself. Your desktop files are untouched either way — see Uninstalling.
The full policy is on the privacy page. The reasoning behind having no telemetry at all, including what it costs, is in Shipping with no telemetry, and what it costs.