Privacy policy
Back Pocket, the Chrome extension · Last updated 6 October 2026
The short version
- Back Pocket works inside your Chrome. It has no server, and its developer never receives your data.
- It reads the titles and links of your open tabs and, only when you ask, the pages in each tab's Back and Forward history.
- What you save is kept in Chrome on your computer. If you turn on sync, it is also kept in a hidden folder in your own Google Drive, and nowhere else.
- No ads, no analytics, no tracking, and nothing is sold or shared.
1. What Back Pocket reads, and why
Chrome asks you to allow these when you install Back Pocket. Each one is used only for what it says here.
| Permission | What Back Pocket uses it for |
|---|---|
| Tabs and tab groups | To list your windows, groups and tabs (their titles and links), and to open, move, group, pin and close tabs when you ask it to. |
| Debugger | To read a tab's Back and Forward list (each page's title and link), and to rebuild that list when you reopen a group with its history. Used only when you press Save, Save & close or Read history, or open a group with its history. Back Pocket does not read what is on the pages: not their text, forms, passwords or cookies. |
| Page navigation | To know when a page has finished loading while a tab's history is being rebuilt. |
| Site icons | To show each site's icon, taken from Chrome's own icon store on your computer. |
| Storage | To keep your saved groups and settings in Chrome on your computer. |
| Identity (Google sign-in) | Only if you turn on sync: to ask your Google account for permission to use Back Pocket's hidden folder in your Drive. |
| Alarms | Only if sync is on: to sync every 5 minutes. |
Access to www.googleapis.com | Only if sync is on: to read and write Back Pocket's one file in your Drive. Apart from loading the pages you ask it to open, this is the only address Back Pocket connects to. |
2. What it keeps, and where
Everything below is kept in Chrome's storage for the extension, on your computer:
- Saved groups: each group's name and colour, and for each tab its title, link, Back and Forward history (titles and links), done mark, pin, and when it last changed.
- Your lists and settings: the Left out list, tabs you marked as different, and choices such as which view you last used.
- Tabs waiting to load: when a group reopens with tabs that load on first click, the title, link and history each one needs. These are deleted once the tab loads, or when Chrome starts and the tab no longer exists.
- History read from open tabs you have not saved is kept only until Chrome closes.
- Deletion notes: when you delete something, a small dated note (an internal ID, or the link of an item removed from the Left out list) is kept for 120 days, so that your other computers delete it too instead of bringing it back.
Files you choose to import are read on your computer and are not uploaded anywhere.
None of this is kept on any server belonging to Back Pocket or its developer. There isn't one.
3. Google Drive sync (off unless you turn it on)
- When you turn on sync, Google asks you to allow Back Pocket one permission:
drive.appdata, which Google describes as "See, create, and delete its own configuration data in your Google Drive". Back Pocket cannot see, open or change any of your files. - Your saved groups (as described above) are written to one file,
back-pocket.json, in that hidden folder. Your open tabs are not synced unless you save them. - The file goes directly between your Chrome and Google's servers over an encrypted connection. Back Pocket's developer cannot see it.
- Chrome handles the sign-in. Back Pocket never sees your Google password.
- Google stores the file as part of your Google account, under Google's Privacy Policy.
- Back Pocket'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.
4. What Back Pocket does not do
- It shows no ads and contains no analytics, tracking or crash reporting.
- It does not sell your data, share it, or send it to anyone. The only place it ever goes is your own Google Drive, and only if you turn on sync.
- It does not use or transfer your data for any purpose other than saving, showing, syncing and reopening your tab groups, and never to judge creditworthiness or for lending.
- It does not load code from the internet. Everything it runs comes inside the extension.
5. Your choices
- Delete a saved group or tab in Back Pocket at any time. Every change can be undone right after.
- Take a copy: Saved → Export saves everything to a file on your computer.
- Stop syncing: Sync → Turn sync off. Back Pocket stops syncing on that computer; the copy already in your Drive stays until you delete it.
- Delete the copy in Drive: in Google Drive, open Settings → Manage apps → Back Pocket → Options → Delete hidden app data.
- Take back Google's permission: remove Back Pocket from your Google account's third-party connections.
- Remove everything on your computer: remove the extension at
chrome://extensions. Chrome deletes everything Back Pocket kept.
6. This website
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from other sites. The company hosting it may keep ordinary access logs (such as IP address, time and the page requested) for a short time to run and protect the site.
7. Children
Back Pocket is not made for children under 13, and it collects no personal information from anyone.
8. Changes to this policy
If Back Pocket ever changes what it does with your data, this page will be updated before the change reaches you, and the date at the top will change with it.
9. Contact
Questions about this policy or about Back Pocket: backpocket@marshalx.dev.