Markpad

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 18, 2026

Markpad ("the extension") is built to work primarily on your device. The Translator feature is the one exception — see "Translator: online by default, on-device on request" below.

What Markpad stores

Snippets, vocabulary terms, page notes, Today tasks (including their time logs), and your settings are stored locally in your browser using Chrome's storage API. This data never leaves your device unless you explicitly enable the optional Google Sync feature, or translate text with the Translator's online translation described below — in which case it is stored only under your own account (for sync) or sent only for that one translation request (for translation), and is never shared with, sold to, or used for any other purpose by any third party.

What Markpad does NOT do

• It does not track your browsing history.
• It does not collect analytics, telemetry, or usage statistics.
• It does not show ads.
• It does not transmit page content, snippets, vocabulary terms, notes, or tasks to any server by default — the only exceptions are text you translate with the Translator's online translation, text you choose to hear read aloud, and feedback you choose to send, all covered below.

Optional permissions

Markpad asks for no access to the websites you visit when you install it. The in-page features — the floating capture button and translate panel, snippet expansion in text fields, and the Pin Widget docked beside the page — only run after you grant Markpad permission to access sites, which Markpad asks for at the moment you turn one of them on. Until then, nothing is added to any web page. With that permission, Markpad reads only the text you select or the alias you type — solely to let you save, translate, or expand it — and never collects page content or browsing history. You can revoke it at any time from Settings or chrome://extensions.

Translator and reading aloud: online by default, on-device on request

To give translations the same quality as translate.google.com, Markpad's Translator sends the text you choose to translate — and only that text — to Google's translation service. This is on by default ("Online translation & reading aloud" in Settings). Text sent this way is used only to produce that one translation, is not logged or stored by Markpad, never passes through any Markpad server (it goes straight from your browser to Google), and is subject to Google's own terms for that service. If Google's service can't be reached, Markpad translates on your device with Chrome's built-in Translator (Chrome 138+) instead. Turn "Online translation & reading aloud" off in Settings and every translation stays on your device: nothing you translate leaves your browser, and translation only works where Chrome's on-device Translator is available.

When you press a listen (speaker) button — in the Translator, in Vocabulary, while reviewing, or in the on-page panel — Markpad reads the text you chose to hear (a word, a sentence, or a translation) with Google's natural voice, by sending that text, and only that text, to the read-aloud feature of Google's translation service at the moment you press. The same switch governs it: turn "Online translation & reading aloud" off, or be offline, and your device's own voices read it instead, with nothing leaving your browser. Where Wiktionary has a recording of a real speaker for a word, that recording is played first.

When you look up a single word or short phrase, Markpad also fetches that word's entry from Wiktionary (en.wiktionary.org) to show its pronunciation and meanings — only the word itself is sent, and dictionary content is shown under Wiktionary's CC BY-SA license. If you add the sentence the word appears in, that sentence is sent to Google's translation service (as above) to find the word's meaning in it. Your recent Translate inputs are kept on this device only, never synced, and can be cleared from the Translate tab.

Add to Google Calendar

Clicking "Add to Google Calendar" on a task or a repeat opens a new tab to Google Calendar with that task's text — and, if the task is linked to a page, that page's URL — included directly in the tab's web address. This is sent to Google only at the moment you click, never automatically, and is not logged or stored by Markpad. Downloading a .ics file from the fullpage Repeating tab does not send anything anywhere; it only saves a file to your device for you to import elsewhere.

Calendar by link (optional)

Markpad can show a Google Calendar next to your tasks. This is off until you add a calendar in Settings › Calendars. If you paste a calendar's "Secret address in iCal format", Markpad asks Chrome for permission to read calendar.google.com and downloads that calendar directly from Google — about once an hour, and more often while Markpad is open. Markpad uses the events only to show them in Today and Calendar and to let you turn one into a task when you click "Add as task"; it never changes anything in Google Calendar.

The link is kept only on your device: it is not synced, not included in backups or exports, and never sent to Markpad. Anyone who has this link can read the calendar, so Markpad shows only its last characters after you save it. The downloaded events are stored only in the extension's local storage on that device and are deleted when you remove the calendar. A task you create from an event is an ordinary Today task, stored and synced like your other tasks.

Connect Google Calendar and Google Tasks (optional)

Both are off until you connect them in Settings › Calendars, and each card explains what it will access before Markpad asks Google for permission.

• Connect Google Calendar (read-only). Markpad asks Google for permission to see your list of calendars (names and colors) and to view the events of the calendars you choose. It uses this only to show those events next to your tasks and to let you turn an event into a task when you click "Add as task". Markpad never creates, changes or deletes anything in Google Calendar.
• Connect Google Tasks. Markpad asks Google for permission to manage your tasks, and then reads and writes only the one task list you choose (by default a new list named "Markpad"). Tasks from that list become tasks in Today, and changes you make in either place — ticking, renaming, rescheduling, adding a step, deleting — are copied to the other. Other task lists are never read or changed.

Where this data lives. Markpad talks to Google directly from your browser; Markpad has no server that receives your calendar or tasks. Calendar events and your calendar list are stored only in the extension's local storage on your device, refreshed while Markpad is in use, and deleted when you disconnect or remove that calendar. Access tokens are stored only on your device, in memory that is cleared when the browser closes. Tasks that come from Google Tasks are ordinary Today tasks: they are stored on your device and — only if you have turned on Google Sync (Markpad Pro) — in your own private cloud storage, exactly like your other tasks, together with the identifier that links each task to its Google Tasks copy.

What Markpad does not do with it. Markpad does not sell this data, does not use it for advertising, does not use it to train AI models, and does not share it with anyone. No person at Markpad reads it, except if you ask us for help and send it to us yourself, or where the law requires.

Turning it off. Disconnect in Settings › Calendars at any time: Markpad deletes its access token and the cached calendar data on that device and stops syncing tasks; tasks already in Today stay where they are, in both places. If you are not signed in to Markpad with the same Google account, Markpad also revokes its access with Google; if you are, that permission is shared with your Markpad sign-in, so remove it from your Google Account at myaccount.google.com/permissions whenever you like.

Markpad's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Optional Google Sync (Markpad Pro)

Signing in with Google is optional and available to everyone, free or paid. When you sign in, Markpad reads your Google account email and name to show which account is connected, and sends your Google sign-in token together with your random installation identifier (see below) to Markpad's license-verification endpoint, which checks whether that account has an active Markpad Pro subscription. Signing in on its own does not upload any of your content. Your snippets, vocabulary, notes, and Today tasks (including their time logs) are copied to your own private cloud storage only when Google Sync is turned on, which requires Markpad Pro — then they sync across your devices. Nothing signs in automatically, and nothing leaves your device unless you sign in. You can sign out at any time, and Pro users can remove all synced data from Settings.

Payment and billing (Markpad Pro)

Markpad Pro is sold through Lemon Squeezy, which acts as the Merchant of Record for the sale. Checkout happens entirely on their hosted page: they collect your name, email address, billing location, and payment details, and they handle the charge, invoicing, and any applicable tax. Markpad never sees or stores your card details. Their handling of that information is governed by Lemon Squeezy's own privacy policy.

To connect a purchase back to your copy of the extension without requiring a billing account, Markpad generates a random identifier for your installation the first time it is needed. That identifier is not derived from your name, email, device, or browsing activity — it is simply a random string. It is sent to Lemon Squeezy at checkout so that the resulting subscription can be matched to your installation, and it is stored alongside your subscription status (active or not, which plan, when it expires). If you sign in for Google Sync, that identifier is also linked to your account so your subscription follows you across devices. To do this, the extension sends your Google sign-in token and that installation identifier to Markpad's own license-verification endpoint (hosted on Google Cloud), which checks whether the account has an active Markpad Pro subscription. Nothing else is sent to it.

Time tracking and idle detection

If you start a timer on a Today task, Markpad uses Chrome's idle API to notice when you have stepped away from your computer for 10 minutes or more, so it can ask whether that time should count. This only reads whether the device is active, idle, or locked — never what you were doing — and the result stays on your device.

Feedback you send

If you send feedback from Settings, your message goes to Markpad's feedback service together with the app version, browser name, operating system, and interface language, so the report can be reproduced. Your email address is included only if you type it in and leave "anonymous" off. Nothing is sent unless you press Send, and feedback is used only to answer you and improve Markpad.