Privacy policy

The short version, one line per part of the product:

• Searching needs no account. A subject you type goes to an AI provider that interprets it, to our search providers, and to YouTube's search API so a learning path can be built for it, and nothing about you goes with it.
• An account stores your email, your name, and your study material: notes, imports, uploads, flashcards, and review history.
• Text goes to an AI provider only when you ask. Three actions send it: generating cards from a note or import, exporting a note as a PDF, and searching a subject. Each one runs only when you start it.
• Four cookies keep the site working. One signs you in, one remembers your subject, one remembers your reading settings, and one gives a signed-out device its free daily path build. Analytics is the only optional one, and the banner asks before anything loads.
• The practice workspaces send us nothing at all. The SQL box and the hands-on Linux lab on some saved paths run inside your own browser. Commands, queries and results stay on your device.
• Deleting your account is self-service and immediate, and it takes your uploaded files with it.

The rest of this page is the same thing with the detail filled in.

When you create an account:

• Your email address and the name you enter, or the name and email your Google account shares if you sign in with Google.

When you use the website:

• The content you put in: notes, pasted text, uploaded PDFs and documents, and the subjects and flashcards built from them.
• Your review history, so the schedule knows when a card is due.
• Reading preferences you set, like text size and reduced motion.
• If you send a message through the contact form: the name, email address and message you type. No account is needed to send one, so this may be the only thing we hold about you.

Automatically: your IP address is used to prevent abuse, such as repeated sign-in attempts or excessive requests to the search, the contact form, or the daily allowance of free path builds. It is held only for the short window needed to enforce that limit, then discarded automatically. Analytics is the one thing that measures how the site is used, it is off until you accept the banner, and declining or ignoring it means no analytics script loads at all.

Your email signs you in and receives account messages like confirmation and password reset links. Your notes and imports exist so you can study them, and so the website can build flashcards and quizzes from them when you ask it to. We do not use your data for advertising, sell it, or share it beyond the services listed next.

The site runs on trusted hosting and database providers, and your data is stored in the United States. Three features send text to an AI provider so it can do its job, and each runs only when you start it: generating flashcards from a note or import, exporting a note as a PDF, and searching for a subject. Only the text involved in that action is sent. A subject you search also goes to our search partners and to YouTube's search service, so real learning material can be found for it. Videos play in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, which sets no tracking cookies before you press play.

If you send a message through the contact form, our email provider delivers it and necessarily sees the name, address and message you typed. A bot-detection service may check that a search or a contact form submission comes from a person rather than a script, using your IP address and basic browser signals for that check alone. If error reporting is enabled, a fault on the site sends a brief technical report, the page and browser involved, to help us find and fix it.

None of these providers receive your data for any purpose beyond the one described here, and none of them may use it for their own advertising.

Quad Encode uses YouTube API Services to find video courses for the subject you search, and videos play in YouTube's own embedded player. That means YouTube's rules apply alongside this page. The YouTube Terms of Service and Google's privacy policy cover what YouTube collects once a video is playing.

We never sign you in to YouTube and never ask for access to a YouTube account, so there is no permission here for you to revoke. A search sends the subject you typed and nothing about you. What comes back is about the video rather than about you: its id, its title, the channel that published it, and when it was published. Those four are stored so a saved path can show the resource and link to it. A cached path is deleted 30 days after it was built, whether or not anyone searches for it again.

• One keeps you signed in.
• One remembers which subject you were last studying.
• One remembers your reading settings, like text size.
• One is a random identifier stored in the browser of a signed-out visitor, used only to give each device one free path build per day. It is not linked to an account and carries no personal information.

None of those four track you, and none of them are optional, because the site cannot sign you in or remember a setting without them. Analytics is the fifth and the only one you choose: the banner asks on your first visit, nothing loads until you accept, and your answer is kept on your own device rather than in another cookie. You can change it here whenever you like.

Your browser also keeps a little local state on your own device: your theme choice and your speed run high score in local storage, and where you paused a video for the life of the tab. None of that leaves your device.

Two learning tools run entirely on your device instead of on our servers: a SQL practice box, and a hands-on lab available on select certification paths. The first time you open one it downloads what it needs to run, and after that the queries you write, the commands you run, and what either one prints back stay on your device. We never see them, and the lab has no connection to the internet at all.

No longer. Rate-limit counters delete themselves once their window closes. The website caches generated learning paths for public searches, but a cached path carries no link to who searched for it.

Imported files are kept differently by type. A PDF you import is kept, so the note can show it beside your notes: on the free tier for 7 days, on Pro for as long as your account exists. Either way, your notes and the cards built from them are yours for good; only the original file expires. A DOCX is uploaded, read once for its text, and deleted immediately. Plain text and markdown files never leave your browser as files; only their text is sent.

Contact form messages are the exception, because they are sent without an account and deleting one would delete the conversation. They are kept until the question is answered and are not used for anything else. Ask in a reply and yours will be removed.

Your data is encrypted on the way to us and while stored. The database is built so an account can only ever see its own data, and we test that boundary rather than assume it. Uploaded files are private to your account.

Sharing a deck is the one exception, and you control it. A share link you create lets anyone who has it practice that note's flashcards: they see the cards' terms and definitions and nothing else. The note itself stays private, and deleting the link ends the access.

Everything the website holds about you is visible by using it: your notes, cards, subjects and history are all in the interface. Your name and email change in settings.

Deleting your account is self-service, in settings, and immediate. It removes your account, subjects, notes, cards, review history, imports, and uploaded files. There is no retention period and no backup you need to chase.

To protect the privacy of younger users, Quad Encode is only for people aged 13 and older. Please don't create an account if you are under 13, as we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has created an account, please reach out via the contact link below, and we will delete the account and its data immediately.

Learning paths link out to courses, videos and documentation across the open web. Those sites have their own policies, and this one stops at the click.

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and any change that touches what leaves the server will be described here rather than buried.

Questions about this policy or your data: send a message. No account needed. The terms of use cover the rest of the relationship.