Privacy and retention

What happens to a file you convert here, in plain language. No lawyers were involved.

The short version

  1. You upload

    The file goes to a folder named with a random 32-character id, outside the public web root. It is not listable and not reachable by URL.

  2. We convert

    The conversion runs on this server. Nothing is sent to a third-party API, and no one reads your file.

  3. The original is erased

    Immediately — the moment the conversion finishes, before you even see the download link.

  4. The result is erased

    30 minutes after conversion. A cron job and a background sweep both enforce it.

What is stored, precisely

WhatWhereHow long
Your uploaded file storage/tmp/<job>/in/ Until the conversion finishes
The converted file storage/tmp/<job>/out/ 30 minutes
A hash of your IP address storage/rate/ Up to 2 hours
A session cookie Your browser Until you close it
Error messages, if something breaks storage/logs/error.log Until the operator clears it
The IP hash exists only to enforce the limit of 60 conversions an hour. It is a one-way HMAC, so the address itself is never written down, and the file is deleted within two hours regardless. Error logs record what went wrong and where in the code — never the contents of a file.

What is never collected

  • No account, email address or name — there is nothing to sign up for.
  • No analytics, no advertising and no third-party tracking scripts.
  • No copy of your file kept for "quality" or "training" purposes.
  • No record of what you converted, or when.
  • No content of any file written to any log, ever.

Download links

Every download link carries a signature generated from a secret key held only on this server. A link cannot be guessed, and altering any part of it makes it invalid. Because job ids are random and short-lived, a link is effectively useless the moment it expires — and it will expire whether or not it was ever used.

The speed test is different — read this

The internet speed test is run by Measurement Lab, not by us. Your browser talks directly to an M-Lab server, and M-Lab publishes every measurement it collects as open data, including your IP address. That is how the platform stays independent and free. We ask you to confirm you understand this before the test will start; if you would rather not contribute a measurement, do not run it. Nothing else on this site behaves that way.

Questions we get asked

Can you recover a file I converted an hour ago?

No, and that is the point. Once the retention window passes the files are gone from disk and there is no backup of them anywhere. Please convert again.

Is it safe to convert something confidential?

The file is processed on this server and deleted on a timer, and nothing is logged or shared. But it is still a file leaving your device over the internet, so use your own judgement about genuinely sensitive material — the honest answer for anything highly confidential is to use desktop software instead.

Do you look at what people upload?

No. There is no admin interface that lists jobs and no notification when one runs. The only thing an operator can see is the error log, which records code paths, not content.

Who is the operator here?

Defencebyte. For anything about this page, write to support@defencebyte.com.

Last reviewed October 2026. Retention is currently set to 30 minutes; the figures on this page are read from the live configuration.