Privacy policy
Last updated 8 October 2026
Mare is a notes app that runs on your own computer. There is no Mare account and no Mare server. Your notes stay on your computer and on the storage you choose to sync them with, and the developer never receives them.
Who is responsible
Mare and this website, marenotes.ink, are made by Mats Moolhuizen, an independent developer. Questions about this policy or about your data can go to hello@marenotes.ink.
What the app keeps, and where
- Your notes, their attachments and a small database of note details (pins, archive and trash state) are files in a folder on your computer. You pick the folder.
- Settings, the search index and caches are also kept on your computer.
- Locked notes are stored encrypted, on your computer and everywhere they sync to. The password is never stored.
- The app has no analytics, no telemetry and no crash reports. It does not tell the developer that you installed it, how you use it or what you write.
Sync
Sync is optional. When you turn it on, your workspace goes straight from your computer to the storage you chose, such as a git remote, and back. Nothing passes through a server run by the developer, because there is none.
The passwords, keys and tokens that let Mare into your storage are kept on your computer, in the keychain of your operating system when it has one. They are not sent to the developer or to anyone other than the storage they belong to.
Whoever runs the storage you chose handles what you put there under their own privacy policy. Anyone you give access to that storage can read the workspace, apart from the text and attachments of locked notes.
Google Drive and Google user data
You can choose Google Drive as the storage Mare syncs with. To do that you sign in with your Google account and give Mare permission. This section says what Mare does with that access.
What Mare can access
Mare asks for one Google Drive permission, called drive.file. With it Mare can see, change and delete only the files that Mare itself created in your Drive. It cannot see or open anything else in your Drive.
How Mare uses it
Only to sync your workspace: Mare uploads the history of your workspace to your Drive and downloads it again on your other computers. It uses the access for nothing else.
Where the data is stored
- In your own Google Drive, as files: your notes, their attachments and the small database of note details. Locked notes are stored encrypted.
- On the computers where you use Mare, as the same workspace folder.
- The sign-in token that Google gives Mare is kept on your computer, in the keychain of your operating system. It is sent only to Google.
Who it is shared with
Nobody. The data travels between your computer and Google and nowhere else. The developer never receives your notes, your Google account details or the sign-in token. Mare does not sell Google user data, does not pass it to anyone, does not use it for advertising and does not use it to train AI or machine learning models. No person other than you reads it.
Keeping and deleting it
The data is kept for as long as you leave it there. To remove it:
- Disconnect Google Drive in Mare. This removes the sign-in token from your computer.
- Delete the Mare folder in your Google Drive to remove the synced copy.
- Take back Mare's access at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions.
Google's rules for this data
Mare's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Other connections the app makes
Apart from sync, Mare connects to the internet in three cases. As with any connection, the server on the other side sees your IP address.
- Updates. While automatic updates are on, Mare downloads the public release list from get.marenotes.ink when it starts and every six hours after, and downloads a new version when there is one. The request carries no identifier and nothing about you, your computer or your notes. You can turn automatic updates off in the settings.
- Link previews. When a web address in a note becomes a card, Mare fetches that page and its picture from your computer. The website you linked to sees a visit from your IP address by a program that calls itself "Mare link preview".
- Diagrams. To draw Mermaid diagrams, Mare downloads a small drawing tool from GitHub, once. The diagrams themselves are drawn on your computer.
This website
- The website sets no cookies and has no forms, accounts or advertising.
- It is hosted by Cloudflare, as are the downloads on get.marenotes.ink. Cloudflare handles your IP address and the technical details of each request in order to deliver pages and files.
- It uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits. That works without cookies and does not identify or follow individual visitors. The developer sees totals, such as how many times a page was viewed and from which country.
Your rights
The developer holds no personal data about people who use Mare, so there is nothing to look up, correct or delete on that side. Your notes are yours and are under your control, on your computer and on your storage. If you write to the address above, your email is used only to answer you.
Changes to this policy
If Mare changes what it does with data, this page changes first, with a new date at the top. If the way Mare uses Google user data changes, the app asks for your agreement before the change applies to you.