Privacy Policy
This policy explains what personal data the Inbox Search Outlook add-in and the inboxsearch.app website process, why, and what your rights are. Inbox Search (enterprise and VAT number BE1035530428) is responsible for this data, and you can reach us at hello@inboxsearch.app. Inbox Search is not affiliated with Microsoft.
In short
- Search runs on your device. The add-in reads your emails inside Outlook to build a search index, and the AI that searches it runs on your device. Your emails, their subjects, your folder names and your searches are not sent to our servers or to any third-party AI service.
- We keep a small account record: your Microsoft account identifier and email address, your plan, and usage and diagnostic counts that let us apply the free plan’s daily limit, fix bugs and understand how the add-in is used.
- Payments are handled by Polar. We never see your card details.
- We do not sell personal data or use it for advertising.
1. What stays on your device
To build its search index, the add-in reads the emails in your primary mailbox, including their text, through Microsoft’s mail service. Its only mailbox permission is read access (Mail.Read), so it cannot send, change, move or delete email. The AI model that searches the index runs inside Outlook on your device. The model and the open-source software the add-in is built on are listed with their licences in our third-party notices.
On your device the add-in stores the search index (your emails’ text and details, and the numerical fingerprints the AI uses to match them), the AI model’s files, Microsoft’s sign-in data, an identifier that links your usage counts to your account, and a few settings and counters. The index is not sent to our servers. You can delete it at any time with Clear index in the add-in’s Settings, and remove everything the add-in stores by clearing your browser data for app.inboxsearch.app.
2. What we store on our servers, and why
We keep the following on our servers, which are hosted by Cloudflare. You need a Microsoft account for the add-in to work, and without the account data below we cannot apply your plan.
| Data | Why | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account: your Microsoft account identifier, your email address(es) and your sign-in name | To recognise you, apply your plan, and match a purchase to you | Contract |
| Plan: your plan, its status and renewal date, and the identifiers Polar gives your subscription | To give you the plan you have | Contract |
| Usage: when you use the add-in, how many searches you run, AI finds you use and results you open, how many emails are indexed, the language Outlook is set to, and how many of your recent emails are not in English (counted on your device) | To apply the free plan’s daily limit; to understand how the add-in is used, whether search finds what people look for, and which languages to support | Contract (daily limit); legitimate interest (the rest) |
| Diagnostics: your Outlook platform and add-in version, how indexing and searches perform, and error reports with personal data removed | To find and fix problems | Legitimate interest |
| Website counts: daily counts of visits and button presses on inboxsearch.app (see below) | To know whether visitors manage to install the add-in | Legitimate interest |
None of this includes the content of your emails, their subjects, your folder names or what you search for. Error reports are the one place such text could slip in, so personal data such as email addresses is removed from them and they are shortened before they are stored.
Website counts. On inboxsearch.app we count which pages are visited and which install buttons are pressed, together with a broad category of where the visit came from, such as a search engine or an AI assistant. The counts carry no identifier: no cookie, no IP address, no user-agent string and never the address you came from, and nothing is written to your browser or device. They cannot be linked to a person, to a second visit or to an account, and they are deleted after 90 days.
3. Who receives data
Our processor. Cloudflare hosts the add-in and this website and stores our server records on our behalf, under its data processing agreement. To deliver and protect the service it also handles standard connection data such as IP addresses, which we do not store.
Independent controllers. These companies decide how they use the data they receive, under their own privacy policies:
- Microsoft provides sign-in and access to your mailbox for the Microsoft account you use, under its privacy statement.
- Polar, our reseller and Merchant of Record, handles payments, invoices and tax for Pro under its privacy policy. It receives what you enter at checkout and your Microsoft account identifier, so that the purchase is linked to your account, and tells us your subscription status and the email address you paid with. Polar is not involved if you only use the free plan.
4. Transfers outside Europe
Cloudflare, Microsoft and Polar are based in the United States, so your data may be processed there. Our transfers to Cloudflare are covered by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in its data processing agreement; Microsoft and Polar describe the safeguards they apply in their own privacy policies.
5. How long we keep it
- Account and usage data: while you use the add-in, or until you ask us to delete it. If the add-in is not used with your account for two years, we delete it.
- Plan data for a paid subscription: while you have the subscription, and afterwards for as long as we need it to answer billing questions or as the law requires.
- Diagnostics: replaced as new ones arrive; we keep the latest state, a few recent error reports and running totals.
- Website counts: 90 days.
- Data on your device: until you clear the index or clear your browser data for app.inboxsearch.app.
6. Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict its use, or to receive your account and subscription data in a portable format. You can also object to the processing we base on legitimate interest: we will then stop collecting usage analytics and diagnostics for your account, while the counting needed for the free plan’s daily limit continues for as long as you use the add-in.
To use any of these rights, email hello@inboxsearch.app. We answer within one month. For complex requests we may take up to two more months, and if so we tell you within the first month.
You can also stop the add-in’s processing at any time by uninstalling it, revoke its access to your Microsoft account at myapps.microsoft.com, and delete what it keeps on your device as described under What stays on your device. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the data protection authority where you live or work, or to the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Autorité de protection des données / Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit).
7. Children
Inbox Search is not directed at children under 13 (16 in the EEA). If you believe a child has used it, contact us and we will delete their data.
8. Security
Connections to our servers and to Microsoft are encrypted, we keep as little data on our servers as we can, and personal data is removed from error reports before they are stored. Because email content is not stored on our servers, a breach of our database would not expose your emails. If a breach affects your personal data, we will notify the competent data protection authority and you as the law requires.
9. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the add-in or the law changes, and will update the date at the top of this page. If we make a material change to what we collect or why, we will tell you through the add-in or by email where we can.
10. Contact
For any question about this policy or your data, email hello@inboxsearch.app.