Privacy Policy

The application

FileRanger sends nothing.

There is no account to create, no sign-in, no analytics service, and no telemetry. Your file names, your folder paths, and the contents of your files are never uploaded — not to us, not to a third party, not to anywhere. The app has no server to talk to, so this is not a setting you have to find and switch off. It is how the software is built.

Here is the copy we show inside the app, during setup and in Settings → Privacy. This policy says the same thing at greater length, and the two are meant to stay identical:

Your file index stays on this PC. No filenames or file contents are uploaded. You control which drives and folders are indexed. You can pause indexing, exclude folders, or delete the index at any time.

That said, a search tool has to remember a great deal about your files in order to answer instantly. We would rather be completely straight with you about what that means than hide behind "we collect nothing." The next section is the honest version.

What FileRanger stores on your PC

FileRanger keeps a local database of your file names and paths.

The index is an ordinary SQLite database, together with the app's own logs and settings, written to FileRanger's per-user application-data folder inside your Windows user profile. Nothing is written outside that profile. Here is what it holds:

So yes — a list of your file names and where they live is sitting in a database on your computer. That is precisely what makes FileRanger fast, and it is precisely why it never leaves the machine and why you can delete all of it in one step.

The index is not encrypted. It is a standard SQLite database protected the same way the rest of your profile is: by your Windows user account. Anyone who can already read your files on that PC can also read the index. We would rather say that plainly than imply a protection the app does not provide.

Not in this version

Two capabilities are designed but not shipping in FileRanger 1.0.3: extracting text from inside your files for content search ("Deep Search"), and reading richer metadata such as image dimensions, media duration, author, or camera. When they ship they will be off by default, they will require you to turn them on, and this policy will be updated before they do.

What you control

Everything above is yours to scope, pause, or delete.

• What gets indexed. You choose the drives and folders. Indexing the folders you pick is the default; indexing a whole drive is something you have to switch on deliberately. This is FileRanger's own setting, inside the app — not a Windows permission.
• Exclusions. Add or remove folder and pattern exclusions at any time. Exclusions are always visible in Settings; nothing is hidden from you, including our own defaults.
• Pause indexing. Suspend all scanning whenever you want. Search keeps working against what has already been indexed, and you can resume at any point.
• Delete the index. Remove a single drive's data or the entire index — the database and its sidecar files — from inside the app.
• Uninstall. Removing FileRanger removes the app's local data with it.

One limit worth stating: deleting the index deletes the index. Your actual files are never touched, and we cannot delete anything outside FileRanger's own data folder.

Administrator rights and system access

FileRanger runs without administrator rights. All of it, all the time.

The FileRanger window, the index, indexing, and search never need elevated privileges. FileRanger is an ordinary Windows desktop application: it runs as you, it can read what your Windows account can read, and it will never show you a Windows UAC elevation prompt. It is not a system service and it does not install a driver.

That has a privacy consequence worth stating plainly: FileRanger cannot see anything your own Windows account cannot see. Every location it indexes — your folders, whole drives if you opt in, removable and network drives — is read through the standard Windows file APIs with your account's own permissions and no more.

Sensitive locations

Some folders hold secrets rather than files you are looking for. Those are excluded before you ask.

FileRanger ships with default exclusions for the categories below. They are entries in the ordinary exclusions list — visible in Settings, and reversible if you genuinely need to search one of them.

These are separate from the tidiness exclusions FileRanger also suggests — skipping node_modules or .git is about noise, and this is about secrets. When content extraction ships, turning it on for one of these categories will always require its own explicit opt-in, over and above indexing the names.

Diagnostics and crash logs

Logs stay on your machine unless you decide to send them.

FileRanger writes local log files, and it can produce a diagnostics bundle on demand — logs, index health, and the state of your volumes and scan checkpoints. Nothing is transmitted automatically. There is no crash reporter phoning home.

The bundle is generated only when you ask for it, saved where you can open it and look through it first, and shared only if you choose to attach it to an email to us. If you do send one, it becomes ordinary support correspondence — see section 9.

Your email address in your license file

Your license is a file with your email address in it. It is not checked against a server, because there is no server.

When you buy FileRanger we generate a license file and send it to you. Your purchase email address is embedded in it — that is what ties the license to you, and it is a mild deterrent against passing it around, since your address is written inside.

FileRanger reads that file locally when it starts. It does not transmit it, validate it against an activation service, or check in periodically. There is no activation server, so the app works the same on day one and on a day when our website is down.

When you buy

Payments are handled by Paddle. Your card details never reach us.

Paddle.com Market Limited is the merchant of record for FileRanger. Paddle runs the checkout, takes payment, issues your receipt and invoice, and calculates and remits VAT and sales tax. To do that, Paddle receives your name, your email address, your billing country, and your payment details, and processes them under its own privacy policy — you can read it at paddle.com/legal/privacy.

What CTRL Colab receives from Paddle is your email address and your order details: what you bought, when, the order reference, and the country used for tax. We never receive your card number, and we could not charge your card if we wanted to. We use what we do receive to generate your license file, send it to you, honor refunds, and answer questions about your order.

When you contact us

We keep your email so we can answer it.

If you write to hello@ctrlcolab.com we receive whatever you send: your address, your message, and any screenshots, logs, or diagnostics bundles you attach. We use it to help you and for nothing else. We do not add you to a mailing list, and we do not have one.

Please do not send us anything you would not want us to have. If a diagnostics bundle or a screenshot contains file names you would rather keep private, edit it first — or send us a description instead and we will work from that.

This website

ctrlcolab.com serves the pages you are reading and the FileRanger download. The FileRanger pages on ctrlcolab.com do not use analytics, tracking cookies, or third-party embeds. There is no cookie banner because there is nothing to consent to.

Following the checkout link takes you to Paddle, at which point Paddle's own privacy policy and cookie practices apply to that page.

What we keep, and for how long

There is very little to keep, which is the point.

• Nothing about your files. No file names, no paths, no contents, no counts, no drive inventory. We have never had them and there is nothing for us to retain.
• Order and license records — your email address, the order reference, and the license we issued — for as long as you may need support or a duplicate copy of your license, and for as long as tax and accounting law requires records of the sale. Paddle keeps its own transaction records under its own retention schedule.
• Support correspondence — 36 months, then deleted.

Sharing

We do not sell your information, and we share it with one company.

That company is Paddle.com Market Limited, and only for the purchase itself — see section 8. Beyond that, and beyond the ordinary providers who run our email and host this website, nobody receives your information. There are no advertising networks, no data brokers, no analytics partners with a copy of anything, and no arrangement under which your details could be sold.

The only other circumstance is a legal one: if we were required by law to disclose something, we would comply. What we could disclose is limited to what is described on this page — an email address and an order record. Your file index is not ours to hand over.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights under the UK and EU GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act, or a comparable law: access, correction, deletion, portability, and the right to object to certain processing. Write to hello@ctrlcolab.com and we will act on it. We will not make you prove why.

Two practical notes. First, the answer to "what do you hold about me" is almost always an email address and an order record — see section 11. Second, we cannot give you a copy of your index or delete it for you, because we do not have it; that one is entirely in your hands, inside the app.

If you are in the UK, the EU, or another region with a data-protection regulator and you are unhappy with how we have handled a request, you are entitled to complain to that regulator. We would rather you told us first so we can put it right.

Children

FileRanger is a tool for managing files on a personal or work computer. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent us their details, write to us and we will delete them.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will change the date and version at the top of the page. If a change is material — a new category of data, a new recipient, a new purpose — we will say so plainly here rather than quietly editing a sentence. Older versions are available on request.

Our commitment is narrower and firmer than a general promise to be careful: we will not start transmitting your file names, paths, or file contents. That is the product, not a policy setting.

Who we are, and how to reach us

FileRanger is made by CTRL Colab LLC, a New Mexico limited liability company. The installer identifies the publisher as "CTRL Colab"; the full legal name is the one above.

For anything on this page — a question, a request about your information, or a complaint — email hello@ctrlcolab.com. A person reads it.

For legal service or postal correspondence, please contact us by email at the address above and we will provide a physical address on request.