The short version
- Your images are uploaded over an encrypted connection, optimized on the nearest of our servers, and deleted within 3 minutes after you finish. Nobody looks at them; they are never shared, sold or used to train anything.
- There are no accounts, no email sign-up and no advertising cookies.
- We count visits with cookieless analytics that stores nothing on your device and keeps no IP addresses.
Who we are
PicoDiet (picodiet.com) is a free image optimizer. In this policy "we" means PicoDiet. The only contact is a direct message to @tevkert on X; we don't use email.
Your images
- Upload. When you add an image, your browser sends it over HTTPS to the nearest of our servers, which run at bunny.net in several regions. Visitors in Europe are normally served in the EU; only if that server is unavailable may an image be processed in another region. Optimizing happens there; the result is sent straight back to your browser.
- How long we keep it. The uploaded image is kept in temporary storage while you work, so changing the quality or format doesn't upload it again. It is deleted 3 minutes after it was last used, or sooner when the server needs the space or restarts. Results are not stored at all: each one is deleted from the server as soon as it has been sent to you. Previews of HEIC photos are made the same way and not kept.
- Who sees it. Nobody. Images are processed by software only. We don't look at them, share them, sell them, or use them to train or improve any model.
- Metadata. Camera data and location (EXIF, GPS) are removed from every file PicoDiet makes. If your original is already the smallest and you download it, you get it back unchanged, metadata included. We don't collect camera or location data separately from your uploaded files.
- What stays in your browser. Your images and results stay in your browser's memory until you close or clear the page.
Technical data and abuse protection
Like every website, our hosting and content delivery provider, bunny.net (BunnyWay d.o.o., Slovenia, EU), receives your IP address, the address of the page, the time and your browser's user agent with each request. It keeps standard access and security logs, including IP addresses, for a few days, and its firewall, DDoS protection and rate limits check requests per IP address.
To keep the free service fair and cheap, each server limits how much processing one address can use per day. For that it holds your IP address (for IPv6, its network part) in memory with a running count until midnight UTC or until the server restarts, and gives the page an access code tied to that address, valid for an hour, which the server doesn't store. The address is never written to disk or to logs.
For statistics, the server writes one line per optimized image: the formats, file sizes, quality settings and score, timings, the country, and a visitor code. That code is made from the address with a key that is thrown away every day, so it can't be traced back to an address or linked across days. These lines contain no IP addresses, file names or image contents. Our hosting keeps them for about a week; we copy them into our own private statistics and keep them there.
Our domain's DNS is hosted by Cloudflare; Cloudflare answers the address lookup but your requests and images don't pass through it.
Analytics
We use OpenPanel (open source, run on our own server in Finland) to learn which pages are used and whether the tool works. It records page views, clicks on links to other sites, how many images were added or downloaded and with which settings, whether the compare view was used and which error messages appeared, with your country and city, browser, device type and the page that sent you. It sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. Your IP address is used only for a moment to work out the city and a visitor code that changes every day, then discarded. File names and image contents are never sent to analytics.
Ad and content blockers that block OpenPanel are fine: the tool works the same without it.
Storage in your browser
The page remembers your last settings (quality, format, size, a few view options) in your browser's local storage, so they are there next time. This stays on your device and is never sent to us. Clear your site data to remove it.
Legal basis and your rights
We process uploaded images only to do what you ask (to optimize them), and technical and analytics data on the basis of our legitimate interest in running a secure, working service. Because we keep no images and no data that identifies you, there is usually nothing to look up, correct or delete. If you are in the EU, the UK or another place with data protection laws, you can still ask us about your data or object to its use by messaging @tevkert on X, and you can complain to your data protection authority.
Children
PicoDiet is a general tool and doesn't knowingly collect data about children.
Changes
If we change how images or data are handled, for example by processing some images in your browser, we will update this page and its date first.