Privacy Policy — Octothorpe

App: Octothorpe · Package: com.benbowlabs.octothorpe
Publisher: Benbow Labs, a division of Mapleworx Services Inc., Ontario, Canada
Last updated: October 19, 2026

This is Octothorpe's privacy policy. It is part of the Benbow Labs Privacy Policy, which applies to every app we publish; this page gives the facts for Octothorpe. It is available in English and French.

Nothing. Octothorpe does not collect, sell or share any personal information. It cannot connect to the internet itself, and we have no copy of your documents or of anything the app keeps on your phone.

Octothorpe uses only your phone's storage and the cloud storage you choose. If you keep your documents with a cloud storage service, that service's app moves them to and from the internet, not Octothorpe; see "Your documents", below.

If you buy the unlock, Google gives us a record of your order. That record comes to us from Google, not from the app; see Purchases, below.

Octothorpe does not declare Android's INTERNET permission, so Android does not let it open a network connection. You can check this in the app's manifest, and our release build is set to fail if that permission is ever added.

Octothorpe sends nothing to us. Information leaves the app in only these ways:

• Your documents. When you save a document, Octothorpe writes it back, through Android, to the place you opened it from or chose for it. If that place belongs to a cloud storage service, that service's app sends it on; see "Your documents", below.
• Sharing. If you tap Share or Open with, Android hands the document to the app you pick.
• Purchases. The app contains Google's Play Billing Library, which passes your purchase request to the Google Play app on your phone, and confirms the purchase with it afterwards. Google Play then handles the purchase under its own terms. We removed the library's own usage-reporting component, so the app sends no reports itself.
• Links. If you tap a web link in a document, or the Privacy policy or Terms of Use link in the app, it opens in your default web browser, usually in a browser tab that appears inside Octothorpe. That tab is part of your browser, which loads the page and makes the connection, not Octothorpe. Any other kind of link, such as an email address, opens in the app that handles it, and that app makes any connection. Octothorpe doesn't load pictures from the web: a picture in a document that is on the web shows as a placeholder, which you can tap to open it in your browser.
• Your backup. If Android's backup is on, Android copies most of the app's data to your backup account; see "Android's backup, and moving to a new phone", below.

There are no user accounts, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising and no crash-reporting service, and no third-party SDKs other than Google's Play Billing Library and the Google Play services components it requires, which handle the purchase. The app's other building blocks are code libraries that run only on your phone: Android's own (AndroidX, Jetpack Compose and DataStore), and the open-source Markwon and Prism4j, which display Markdown and colour code.

Octothorpe works only with the documents and folders you choose. It has no permission to look through your phone's storage. When you open a file, choose a home folder or create a new file, Android's own file picker gives Octothorpe access to that file or folder alone, and Octothorpe keeps that access so your Library can open it again later. A new file, a saved paste or a copy you make can instead go straight into your home folder, with no picker, through the access you already gave Octothorpe to that folder. Either way, Octothorpe reaches only the files and folders you picked. If you stop using a home folder, in Octothorpe's Settings, Octothorpe hands its access back.

Octothorpe reads those files to show them to you. When you edit a Markdown file, it saves your changes back to the same file; if it was only allowed to read the file, it offers to save a copy wherever you choose instead. It creates a file only when you ask it to, and never moves your documents or deletes one that was already there. If saving a new file fails, Octothorpe deletes the empty file it had just created for it, rather than leave it behind. When you paste text in, it reads the text on your clipboard to show it to you.

If you keep your documents in cloud storage. Some storage services' apps also appear in Android's file picker. If you choose a file or folder that belongs to one of them, Octothorpe reads it and saves it through Android, on your phone, and that service's app copies it to and from its own servers the way it normally does. That is the only way a document you open in Octothorpe reaches the internet: through the storage you chose, under that service's own terms and privacy policy. We don't receive your documents.

Your settings: your theme, your reading appearance (typeface, text size, spacing and line width), your editor style, and your home folder, if you chose one: its location and name, and whether to list its PDFs.

Your reading work: where you left off in each document; your bookmarks, each with the document's name and location and a short label taken from its text; and your highlights and notes, each with the highlighted words, a few words of the text on either side so the highlight can find its place again, its colour and your note.

It also keeps a list of the documents you opened recently, with their names and locations, and your trial record: the dates on which you used the app (seven at most), and whether you have unlocked the full version.

Octothorpe keeps no copies of your documents, apart from two short-lived ones on your phone:

• while a save is in progress, the whole document as it was before your change and as it will be after it, so that a save cut short can be finished or undone. It is deleted when the save is complete, or, if a save was cut short, when you finish or discard it. Octothorpe deletes one that is more than a week old;
• if a storage app won't let a PDF be read in place, a temporary copy of that PDF, deleted the next time Octothorpe starts.

These live in Octothorpe's private storage, which no other app can read. Uninstalling the app deletes them from your phone. It does not delete the backup copy described below, and it does not touch your documents, which stay where you keep them. You can also clear the app's data without uninstalling, from Android's app settings → Octothorpe → Storage → Clear storage.

If Android's backup is turned on, Android — not the app — copies Octothorpe's data to your phone's backup account, usually your Google account, so your settings and your reading work can return when you reinstall Octothorpe or set up a new phone. Android decides when to back up and restore, and not every phone maker or transfer method does it. If you copy your apps straight from an old phone to a new one, Android copies the same things.

The copy goes to your backup account, not to us, and we cannot read it. Google says that on Android 9 and later, if you have a screen lock set, the backup is encrypted with a key based on your screen lock, which Google does not hold. On Android 8, or on a phone with no screen lock, that extra protection does not apply: the backup is protected by Google's own security, under Google's privacy policy.

These are included:

• your settings — your theme, reading appearance and editor style;
• your home folder — its location and name, and whether to list its PDFs;
• your reading work — where you left off in each document, your bookmarks and your highlights and notes, including the highlighted words, the text around them, and the names and locations of the documents they belong to;
• your trial record — the dates on which you used the app, and whether you have unlocked the full version.

Two things are left out: the list of recent documents, because Android's permission to open a file doesn't come with a backup, so a restored list couldn't open anything; and the copies kept while a save is in progress, which belong to the phone they were made on. Your documents themselves are not part of Octothorpe's backup: they stay wherever you keep them.

We chose to include your trial record, so that reinstalling Octothorpe does not restart the free trial. It also means that if you move to a new phone partway through the trial, your remaining days come with you.

The backup copy stays in your backup account until you delete it there, or until Google removes it under its own rules. You can turn backup off in your phone's settings.

Before you switch phones: Octothorpe's access to your files and your home folder doesn't come with the backup. On the new phone, choose your home folder again in Octothorpe's Settings, and open your other documents again. Your bookmarks, highlights, notes and places are matched to each document by its location, so they can come back when you open the same document from the same place. If your settings don't come back, set them up again; we have no copy to send you.

• Google Play billing (com.android.vending.BILLING) — To offer the one-time purchase that unlocks the full version, through Google Play. See Purchases, below.

Octothorpe asks for no other permission. That one comes with Google's Play Billing Library, and Android's support library also adds one entry of its own, com.benbowlabs.octothorpe.DYNAMIC_RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED_PERMISSION. It is not a permission you are asked to grant: it keeps the app's internal messages private from other apps on older versions of Android, and it gives the app access to nothing.

Octothorpe does not ask for internet access, access to your phone's storage, location, the microphone, the camera or your contacts. It reaches only the files and folders you choose (see "Your documents", above).

Octothorpe offers one purchase: a one-time unlock, through Google Play, that covers the whole app. We are the seller, everywhere. Google Play takes your payment and handles your payment details under its own terms. In some countries, mostly in the European Union, the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, Google acts as our agent and is the "merchant of record" for tax and payment purposes. Everywhere else, including Canada and the United States, we are the merchant of record, and a Google payments company collects the payment for us. We never receive your full card number or security code.

For each purchase, Google gives us an order record: the order number, the product, the price, the date and your country, and in some cases your state or province and postal code. If Google includes other details about you with an order, such as your name, we treat them the same way. We use it as section 4 of the Benbow Labs Privacy Policy describes, and keep it for as long as section 7 says.

On your phone, Octothorpe asks the Google Play app whether you have bought the unlock, confirms a new purchase with Google Play (Google requires this), and keeps the answer, unlocked or not, so the unlock works without a connection.

Refunds. If the unlock doesn't do what this page or the Google Play listing says, on a phone with a supported version of Android, we will refund it through Google Play if you ask within 30 days of buying it. Email us with your order number. That time limit applies only to our own promise; your legal rights (section 7 of our Terms of Use) still apply, whenever you ask. Section 4 of our Terms of Use has the full refund rules, and our Support page explains how to ask.

• On your phone: until you clear the app's storage or uninstall it. The copies kept while a save is in progress, and temporary PDF copies, go sooner, as described above.
• Your backup copy: until you delete it from your backup account, or Google removes it.
• Order records: six years after the end of the tax year they relate to, as Canadian tax law requires.

We protect the order records we hold with access controls and encryption in transit.

Almost all of the app's data is on your phone, so you exercise your rights there: you can see your settings, bookmarks, highlights and notes in the app, change them, and delete them by clearing storage or uninstalling. To delete the backup copy, delete it from your backup account. We hold nothing from the app itself that we could access, correct, export or delete on your behalf, and your documents are wherever you keep them.

We decided what Octothorpe keeps and backs up, including the trial record, which serves our purposes as well as yours. Your rights in section 6 of the Benbow Labs Privacy Policy apply to that information too, even though we never receive it.

If you buy the unlock, we hold Google's order record for it. Your rights over that record, and over anything you email us, are in section 6 of the Benbow Labs Privacy Policy. Google keeps its own record of your purchase, which we cannot delete.

These are facts about Octothorpe itself rather than about your information. They are here because they are true of this app, and not necessarily of every app we make.

• Devices: Android 8.0 or later. Octothorpe is available for Android only.
• Where to get it: Google Play, the only place we publish it. A copy from anywhere else isn't an official copy, and we can't support it or vouch for it (section 1 of our Terms of Use).
• Price: free to try, with everything included, for 7 days of use. A day only counts when Octothorpe actually opens a document, so days you don't use it don't use up the trial. After that, a single one-time purchase through Google Play unlocks the whole app. It is not a subscription and never needs renewing. Google Play shows the price in your currency before you buy. The app has no ads.
• When the trial ends: documents stop opening until you unlock the app. Nothing you made is deleted or hidden: your Library, Settings, bookmarks, highlights and notes all stay, and a document that is already open stays open, so you can finish what you're doing and save it. Whether your trial has ended is decided automatically, on your phone, from your count of days of use. If you think it's wrong, email us and a person will look at it.
• Your files: which files and folders you can choose, and whether Octothorpe can save changes to them, is decided by Android and by the app that stores them. If Octothorpe can only read a file, it offers to save a copy somewhere else. If it loses access to a file or to your home folder, for example after a reinstall or on a new phone, choose it again.
• Account: none. There is no sign-up and no sign-in.
• Internet: none. Octothorpe cannot connect to the internet itself (see "Why we can say that", above). A cloud storage service you choose syncs your documents through its own app (see "Your documents", above).
• Backup: Octothorpe takes part in Android's backup, and in moving apps to a new phone, for everything it keeps except the list of recent documents and the copies kept while a save is in progress (see "Android's backup, and moving to a new phone", above).
• If you lose or reset your phone: we have no copy of your documents or of anything the app keeps, so we cannot recover them for you. Your documents are wherever you kept them. If Android's backup was on, your settings and your reading work can come back when you set Octothorpe up again; Android decides when.
• If an Android update stops something working: we'll work on a fix, and say on this page what we know. Our refund promise doesn't cover problems caused by a change to Android (section 4 of our Terms of Use), but that doesn't limit your legal rights (section 7), and the law may still give you a remedy.
• If we stop developing it: Octothorpe does not depend on any server of ours, so a copy already on your phone keeps working for as long as your version of Android runs it. We can't promise it will work with future versions of Android. If we stop developing it, we'll say so on this page and in the Google Play listing while it is still listed. We don't give refunds because we stop developing it; that limits our own promise only, and your legal rights (section 7 of our Terms of Use) still apply.
• Support: email [email protected], or see benbowlabs.com/support. The app's version is shown at the bottom of Octothorpe's Settings, under About.

[email protected] · Mapleworx Services Inc. (Benbow Labs), 350 Bay Street, Suite 1300B, Toronto, Ontario M5H 2S6, Canada.