Last updated: 2 August 2026
Highlight Keywords ("the extension", "we") is a browser extension that highlights words and phrases you save, on the webpages you visit. This policy covers both the extension and this website. The short version: your words stay in your browser, we do not run a server that collects them, and we do not track you or sell anything. A handful of features do reach the internet, because they cannot work otherwise: syncing to your other computers, pulling a list from Airtable, Notion or a URL you choose, checking a Pro licence with Gumroad, and click-to-search. Every one of them is off until you turn it on, each is spelled out below, and none of them ever sends anything to us.
Highlight Keywords is made and run by one independent developer, based in Pakistan, working alone. There is no company, no staff, and no server that receives your data. For anything about this policy or your data, write to highlightkeywords.app@gmail.com.
We do not collect, receive, or store your personal data on any server we control. We have no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking.
The extension stores the following only inside your own browser:
This is saved using the browser's local extension storage on your device. Nothing here has a time limit except the match statistics: your lists, settings, and backups stay until you change or delete them.
If you turn on sync, your lists and settings are synchronized across the browsers where you are signed in, using your browser vendor's built-in sync (for example Google's Chrome Sync) through your own account. This is handled by your browser and your account provider. We never receive or have access to that data.
Turning sync off deletes the synced copy of your lists and settings from your browser account, not just on this device. Your lists stay on each device that already has them. If the deletion cannot go through right away, the extension tells you and you can switch sync on and off again to retry.
One thing stays behind on purpose: if you started the free trial, the trial marker (a random id and the start date) remains in your browser account so that reinstalling does not hand out a second trial. It holds nothing personal, and it is not sent to us.
Chrome's built-in PDF viewer is sealed, so no extension can highlight inside it. If you choose to open a PDF with Highlight Keywords, the extension opens its own viewer page and renders the file there. The PDF is fetched and drawn entirely inside your browser. It is never uploaded, and we never see the file or its contents.
For a PDF saved on your computer, this only works if you turn on Chrome's "Allow access to file URLs" switch for the extension. That switch is Chrome's own, it is off unless you turn it on, and you can turn it back off at any time from the extension's page in Chrome.
One thing to be clear about, because that switch is broader than the PDF feature that needs it: while "Allow access to file URLs" is on, highlighting works on any local file you open in a tab, not only PDFs. A saved web page, an HTML export, a text file. That is deliberate and it is useful, and it is the same highlighting doing the same job. It still all happens inside your browser. Nothing about a local file is uploaded, logged, or sent anywhere, and we never see it. If you would rather the extension never touched local files at all, leave that switch off and everything else keeps working.
If you share a list, its words are encoded into the link itself, in the part after the # sign. Creating or opening a share link uploads nothing; the page decodes the link inside your browser. Anyone who has the link can read that list, so pass it around the way you would pass around the words themselves.
By default the extension talks to nothing. Install it, add your words, and every one of them stays on your computer. Everything below is a feature you have to switch on yourself, one at a time, and each one is listed here so you know exactly what it sends and where. Turn none of them on and nothing ever leaves your browser.
To highlight your keywords, the extension reads the text of the pages you visit, in your browser, only to find and mark your words. This processing happens locally on your device. The page content is not transmitted to us or to anyone else.
A backup you export never contains your license key, your trial marker, or any access token you saved for a private remote list. So you can email a backup or drop it in cloud storage without handing over your purchase or your accounts.
If you send a bug report, a suggestion, or any email, then we do receive something: your email address, whatever you wrote, and the diagnostics you saw before sending. That message lands in a Gmail inbox and is read by one person. It is kept only as long as it is useful for answering you and improving the extension, and it is never used to market anything to you or passed to anyone else. Ask and it gets deleted.
This is the one place where personal data reaches us, and it only happens because you chose to write. The extension itself never sends anything about you.
The site has no analytics, no ads, and no tracking pixels. It sets one cookie, and only if you start the free Pro trial: the trial marker described above, so a reinstall does not hand out a second trial. Nothing else is stored about your visit.
The fonts are served from this site itself, so visiting a page here contacts no other company at all. It used to load them from Google Fonts, which meant Google saw your IP address just because you read this page. That is gone.
Open Settings, go to Sync and backup, and use "Reset all data and settings" in the danger zone. That clears your lists, settings, backups and statistics from this device, and from your browser account if sync was on. Uninstalling the extension also removes its local storage. If you emailed us, ask and we will delete the email too.
Depending on where you live, you have rights over personal data held about you: to see it, correct it, get a copy, or have it deleted. There is an unusual answer here, which is that we hold almost nothing. Your lists live on your own device, so you already have full access: Settings can export everything as a file, and the reset button deletes it.
For the one thing we do hold, an email you sent us, write to highlightkeywords.app@gmail.com and ask for a copy or for deletion. If you are in the UK, the EU, or another place with a data protection authority, you can also complain to that authority. In the EU that is the supervisory authority for the country you live in; in the UK it is the ICO.
Where the law asks what allows us to handle data at all: keeping your lists working on your own device is what you asked the extension to do, answering your email is what you asked us to do, and checking a licence key is part of the purchase you made. We do not rely on any legitimate-interest claim to profile or track you, because we do neither.
We do not sell, rent, or share your data. There is no third party we hand your lists to.
Said the way the Chrome Web Store asks for it: the extension's use of information it can read is limited to providing the highlighting features you turned on, and improving them. It is not sold, not transferred to anyone except as this policy describes, not used for advertising, not used to build a profile of you, and not read by a person.
The extension is a general productivity tool and is not aimed at children. We do not knowingly collect anything from a child under the age where their country requires a parent's consent, which is 13 in the United States and up to 16 in parts of Europe.
If this policy changes, we will update the date above and post the new version on this page.
Questions about this policy: highlightkeywords.app@gmail.com.