Hedgerow
Shrinkwell

Shrinkwell and your privacy

This page sums up what Shrinkwell does with your data. The Hedgerow privacy policy covers every app, the website and purchases in full.

What stays on your PC

  • Settings and data live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Hedgerow\Shrinkwell on your PC.
  • Your settings and watched folders.
  • Recent activity: the names, locations and sizes of the last 50 optimized files, plus recent skips and errors.
  • Your originals, in a backup folder or next to each file, depending on your choice. Backups are deleted after 30 days by default.
  • Copies of recently optimized clipboard images, so Paste original and Copy again work.
  • Daily log files, kept for 7 days, and crash reports if the app crashes.
  • A trial record in the registry under your user account.
  • A Start with Windows entry, a "Send to" shortcut and a notification registration under your user account (Direct edition).

When Shrinkwell goes online

  • License activation (Direct edition): when you enter a key, Shrinkwell sends the key, your PC’s name, the app’s name and an anonymous device ID to our license server. About once a week it checks the license again, sending the key and the activation’s ID.
  • Update checks (Direct edition): Shrinkwell downloads a small file listing the latest version about 30 seconds after each start. The request includes the app’s name and version, nothing else.
  • Crash reports: off unless you turn them on. If Shrinkwell crashes, it saves a report on your PC; with reports turned on it also sends that report, with file paths removed, to crash.hedgerowapps.com.

Good to know

  • Shrinkwell reads images you copy so it can offer a smaller version. Content that apps mark as private or as excluded from clipboard history, such as from password managers, is ignored. Clipboard images and files are never uploaded.
  • Earlier versions kept their data in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Shrinkwell. It moves to the Hedgerow folder the first time this version starts.

There are no ads, and no analytics or usage tracking.

Microsoft Store edition

The Store edition doesn’t contact our license server or check for updates itself: Microsoft handles the purchase, the license and updates, under Microsoft’s privacy statement.