Privacy policy
Last updated: 13 October 2026
- Your files never leave your device
- No account and no sign-up
- No cookies of our own
Who we are
PDFGuild (pdfguild.com) offers free online tools for PDF files, such as making them smaller or changing their size, run from India. In this policy, "we" means PDFGuild and "you" means anyone who uses the site.
Your files stay on your device
Our PDF tools are programs that run inside your web browser. When you add a PDF, it is read, changed and saved on your own device. Your files are never uploaded to us or to anyone else, and we cannot see them.
The tools have no upload step, and our code never passes your files to anyone, including the ad code described below. The site also tells your browser (with a Content Security Policy) to let the page contact only this site and Google's advertising service, and to block every other website.
You can check this yourself: how we prove your files are never uploaded shows two simple checks and lists every site our pages may contact.
How the tools work on your device, step by step: how our tools work. What keeps the site safe, and what we don't control: security.
Information we collect
We do not ask for your name, email address or any other personal details, and there are no accounts. We do not use analytics tools. The one thing you can choose to send us is a star rating of a tool (see Star ratings below).
The server that runs this site may keep short technical records of page requests, such as IP address, date and time, the page requested and browser type. They are used only to keep the site secure and working, and they never include your files. The ratings service itself keeps no access log.
Star ratings
After a tool has finished, you can rate it from 1 to 5 stars. Rating is up to you, and a rating is sent only when you press Send. We keep three things about a rating: the tool's name, the number of stars, and the date and time. A rating never includes your files or their names, and it is not linked to you: it holds no name, no account and no IP address. A rating holds no personal data. Ratings are kept without an end date, because a tool's average counts all of its ratings.
To stop one person sending hundreds of ratings, the ratings service counts how many ratings come from each internet (IP) address in a day. It does this only in its memory, with a scrambled code made from the address and a secret key that is replaced every day, so the count can't be traced back to you. The counts are forgotten each day, and whenever the service restarts. If many ratings come from one address in a day, the extra ones are not counted, and the page tells you so. The ratings service never saves your IP address, with your rating or anywhere else, and it keeps no access log.
A rating is a request to this site like any other, so the server that runs the site may keep the short technical records described above for it. Each tool page also asks the ratings service for the current averages when it opens. That request holds nothing from you except what every request to a website holds, such as your IP address.
So that the page doesn't ask you again that day, your browser keeps a note on your device of the day you rated each tool. This note is not a cookie, is never sent to us, and goes when you clear this site's data in your browser.
Once a tool has at least 5 ratings, its page shows their average and how many there are, and search engines may show the same numbers.
Cookies
PDFGuild does not set any cookies of its own. Your browser keeps two small things in its own storage on your device, not in cookies. One is the names of the last few tools you opened, for "Your recent tools" in the menu and on the home page; the Clear button next to it deletes that list. The other is the day you rated each tool, if you do (see Star ratings above). Our code never sends either of them anywhere.
Google, our advertising partner, may set and read cookies and similar technologies on our pages to show and measure ads (see below). In our own test, before any ad was shown, the ad code set one cookie on the first page view: test_cookie, on Google's doubleclick.net domain, which Google uses to check whether your browser accepts cookies. Google may set other cookies too, for example when it serves an ad.
Advertising
To keep PDFGuild free, our pages load Google AdSense's ad code, which shows ads and sends Google information such as the page address, your IP address and browser details. This page, the privacy policy, does not load it. About Google's ads:
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this website or other websites.
- Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
- You can opt out of personalised advertising in Google's Ads Settings, and opt out of some other vendors' cookies at www.aboutads.info.
- Visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are asked for their consent through Google's consent message, which appears on our pages, before Google uses cookies or personal data for personalised ads. The message links to this page, which loads no ad code.
Read how Google uses information from sites that use its services. Our code never gives your PDF files to the ad code.
Children
PDFGuild is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from children.
Links to other websites
Ads and some of our pages link to other websites. Their own privacy policies apply there.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy, for example when we add a new tool. The date at the top shows the latest version. If we ever start collecting a new kind of information, this page will say so before it happens.
Contact
Questions about this policy? Email us at info@pdfguild.com.