privacy
Privacy Policy
Last updated: 27 October 2026
1. Who is responsible
tapeshelf, the service at tapeshelf.com, is responsible for the data described here — the “controller”, in the words of the GDPR: it decides what is collected and why. For anything about your data, write to contact@tapeshelf.com.
2. What we collect
Your account: email address, password (stored only as a hash, never as text), username, display name and, if you add them, avatar, cover, bio, what you're looking for and what not to offer you in exchanges (“Looking for” and “Please don’t offer”), language and theme. If you sign in with Google, we receive the email address and identifier of your Google account — never your Google password.
Two-step sign-in, if you turn it on: the secret of your authenticator app, stored encrypted, and your recovery codes, stored only as keyed hashes, so that a copy of the database alone opens neither; for each passkey, its public key and a name taken from the type of device, such as iPhone or Windows. We never receive the private part of a passkey.
Your videos: the files you upload, their titles, descriptions, categories and stacks, the covers and 16-frame previews we make from them, a fingerprint (SHA-256 hash) and technical details of each file, and the titles and descriptions you give to videos you received (only you see those). From each new file we remove the metadata it carries, such as where and when it was recorded, the camera, the author and comments. Videos uploaded before 18 October 2026 were left as they were.
What you do: requests, offers and trades, friends, follows and blocks, messages, notifications and their settings, the downloads you make (which video and when, to count the monthly limit), reports you send and reports about you.
Links: for each temporary link you make, its videos, how long it works, the email address of the person it's for if you choose “Only for one person”, its password only as a hash, and when it was first opened; for each exchange link, its videos and the deals started from it. If a temporary link is meant for you, we get your email address from the sender and use it to send you the link and the one-time codes that open it.
Support: what you write in a support request, the screenshots you attach (we remove their metadata) and the video of yours you point to, if any. A bug report always carries technical details, and the form shows them before you send: browser, system, screen and window size, pixel ratio, browser and app language, theme, time zone, the page you were on and the app's version.
Guests: if you trade without an account, we create a guest record with no name, email address or password. A random key in a cookie ties your browser to your deals; we keep a hash of it and an encrypted copy, so that the deal's link can open the deal on another device. We also keep the videos you upload for the deal with their titles, the message you send with your offer and, if you give one, your email address. The address isn't confirmed and is used only for news about the deal.
If you buy Pro: Paddle tells us the state of your subscription — its identifiers, whether it's monthly or yearly, its status and dates. Your card details and billing address stay with Paddle.
Technical: the IP address, browser and time of each session (you can see them in Settings → Security), failed login attempts, and short-lived server logs. When an account is created, we remember the IP address for one day, so that another sign-up from the same address within that day is asked to pass a captcha. A new guest passes the captcha before their first video, and we count the deals started from one IP address for a day to limit them. A guest who watches a public video gets a random guest id in a cookie, used only to issue playback tokens.
3. What we use it for
- To run the service: store and stream your videos, deliver requests, trades and messages, and run temporary links, exchange links and exchanges with guests.
- To notify you, in the app and by email, according to your notification settings; to email a guest news about their deal, and the person a temporary link is meant for the link and its codes.
- To run Pro: match a payment Paddle reports to your account, and switch Pro on and off.
- To keep accounts safe and stop abuse: sessions, two-step sign-in, rate limits, blocked login attempts, the captcha on repeated sign-ups and for new guests.
- To answer your support requests.
- To moderate: handle reports and keep a log of moderation actions.
- To understand how the site is used, in aggregate (see Analytics).
The legal grounds: most of this is needed to provide the service you signed up for or use as a guest (our contract with you); security, abuse prevention and moderation rest on our legitimate interest in keeping tapeshelf safe; and we keep or disclose data when the law requires it.
We don't sell your data, we show no ads, and we don't build advertising profiles.
5. Analytics
We count visits with Plausible Analytics, hosted in the EU. It sets no cookies, stores no IP addresses and doesn't follow you across sites; we see only totals, such as page views and where visitors came from.
6. Who else handles your data
- A hosting provider in Germany: the servers, the database and the storage where videos live.
- An email delivery service: sends our emails, including those to guests about their deals and to the people temporary links are meant for.
- Paddle.com: sells Pro as our reseller. What you enter at checkout — such as your email, country and payment details — goes to Paddle, which handles it as an independent controller under its privacy notice.
- Cloudflare: only when someone is asked to pass the captcha (Cloudflare Turnstile): on a repeated sign-up from the same address, and before a new guest's first video. Cloudflare checks the IP address and the browser to tell people from bots.
- Google: only if you choose to sign in with Google.
- Plausible: the visit counts described above.
Your account and your videos are stored in Germany, in the European Union. Cloudflare and Google may process what they receive outside the EU, with the safeguards the GDPR requires. We share data with no one else unless the law requires it.
7. The browser extension
tapeshelf Video Downloader, our browser extension, works in your browser. Finding and downloading videos happens there: the files go from the sites straight to your computer, and nothing about the pages you open or the videos you download is sent to us. Its settings and the history of your downloads stay in your browser; you can turn the history off and clear it.
It sends data to tapeshelf only when you ask it to: - When you connect it to your account, it receives a key that can only upload videos to that account. Settings → Security lists it, and disconnecting it there revokes the key. - When you press “Save to My shelf”, it uploads that video, with the title and description you see in its form, to your account. Our server notes that the connection and the upload came from the extension; that is how we count how many people use it.
The version downloaded from this site asks tapeshelf.com once a day which version is the latest; the request carries nothing that identifies you. Versions from browser stores are updated by their store. The extension has no analytics, no ads and no trackers, and its code is open.
8. What other people can see
- Your profile: display name, username, avatar, cover and bio — visible to anyone with the link. If you have Pro, a small Pro badge next to your name. With Pro you can hide your whole page: then your profile, shelf and lists open only for you and the moderators, while videos you already shared stay with the people who got them. When Pro ends, a hidden page becomes visible again.
- “Looking for” and “Please don’t offer”: in every exchange with you, and on your page only if you choose so.
- Your public videos, and the covers and 16-frame previews of your private videos.
- Your friends, followers and the people you follow.
- Your username as the author on videos other people hold.
- A temporary link's page: your username and avatar with the videos in the link, to anyone who has the link while it works. When a temporary link is first opened, its sender is told, with the username of whoever opened it if they were signed in; when someone adds its videos to their shelf, the sender is told who.
- In an exchange with a guest, each side sees the other's videos only as title, length, size, quality and frame preview, plus the message sent with the offer. The guest sees your username; you see the guest only as “Guest”.
- Original files: people who may download a video get the file we store. For videos uploaded since 18 October 2026, that file no longer carries the metadata it came with. Older videos are downloaded exactly as they were uploaded, with any metadata they carry (for example, the date or place of recording).
- Messages: visible to the person you sent them to, and they stay visible after you delete your account, labelled as from a deleted user.
- Support requests: only you and the administrators; replies are signed “Support”.
Administrators can see what's needed to run and moderate the service, including private videos and, when handling reports, messages.
9. How long we keep it
- Your account: until you delete it.
- Videos you delete: gone from the site immediately. For 30 days (90 days on Pro) you can bring them back from “Deleted”, unless you delete them from there or empty it sooner; after that they can't be restored. Videos removed by the moderators or deleted with an account can't be restored by their author.
- Files of deleted videos: kept as long as they are needed to handle reports, disputes and legal claims about them, then erased.
- Edits saved into the same video: the previous version is erased a few hours later, so that people already watching can finish.
- The fingerprint (hash) of a file removed for breaking the rules: kept, so that the file cannot be uploaded again.
- Exchanges with guests: a guest's videos are deleted and erased from storage as soon as the deal is declined, cancelled, runs out or is closed; a deal runs out after three days without a new step. A draft the guest never sent is deleted after a day, and one whose videos never finished processing, after a week. After an exchange, the guest can watch and download what they received for a week; signing in or creating an account moves the deals and videos into the account. The guest record and the email given for the deal are kept until the guest asks us to delete them at contact@tapeshelf.com or signs in, which closes the record and erases the email.
- Temporary links: deleted 30 days after they run out or are revoked, together with the recipient's email address and the password hash. Downloads through a temporary link aren't written to the download log.
- Notifications: 90 days once read, a year at most.
- The download log: 13 months.
- Sessions: until you sign out or they expire, at most a year; the record of a closed session is kept 30 more days.
- Two-step sign-in: the app's secret, passkeys and recovery codes stay until you remove them or turn two-step sign-in off.
- Links in our emails (address confirmation, password reset): their records are deleted 30 days after the link is used or expires.
- The IP address of a sign-up, for the captcha check, and of a guest's new deal, to limit deals from one address: one day.
- Payment events from Paddle (their identifiers): 90 days. The state of your subscription stays with your account; invoices and payment records are kept by Paddle as tax law requires.
- Unfinished uploads: 24 hours.
- Database backups: 14 days, so deleted data may linger in a backup for up to two weeks.
- Server logs: up to 30 days.
- The moderation log: 2 years. Reports: kept as a record of moderation, even after an account is deleted.
- Support requests: not erased on a timer. After you delete your account they stay with support, labelled as from a deleted user, and the screenshots in them are erased.
- Messages: not erased on a timer; after you delete your account they stay visible to the people you sent them to.
10. Your rights
Under the GDPR you can get a copy of your data, have it corrected or erased, restrict or object to how we use it, and receive the data you gave us in a portable form.
- Much of this you can do yourself: see and change your data in Settings, delete your account there, and download your own videos — your uploads never count toward the download limit. A guest can cancel an open deal, and their videos are deleted at once.
- For a copy of your data, or anything else about it, write to contact@tapeshelf.com from the address of your account. There is no automatic export: we prepare the copy by hand and reply within a month.
- If you live in the EU, you can also complain to your data protection authority.
11. Changes to this policy
We'll update this page when something changes, and the date at the top with it. If a change matters, we'll announce it on the site.