The short version
There is no account. The names, dates, places, notes and photographs you add are saved in your own browser on your own device, and the preview is drawn there too.
Print files are made on our download server. Only when you press a download button, the studio sends it what that file needs — the names, dates and places in the project, your design choices and the photos shown on the design. The server makes the file, sends it back to you and does not save your project or photos. Notes are not sent.
We do not sell or share your family information.
Our public pages — not the studio or My projects — can use Microsoft Clarity analytics, but only if you allow it. It is off until you choose.
What stays on your device
Your projects — people, relationships, notes, photos, design choices and settings — are saved in this browser’s built-in storage (IndexedDB) for this site. That storage belongs to your browser profile on this device. Other websites cannot read it.
Files you import, such as a GEDCOM or CSV file, are read inside the browser; importing sends nothing to our server. Project backups you export and restore are made and read in the browser too.
What is sent when you download
Only when you press a download button — for the proof, PDF, PNG, JPG, SVG or print bundle — the studio sends one request to our download server on this same site. It contains the people in that project with their names, dates, places and relationships, your design choices, and the prepared copies of the photos shown on the design. Notes, the names of imported files and other photos in the project are not included.
The server checks the request, draws the file in memory with the same layout as your preview and returns it. The application does not save your project, your photos or the finished file on the server, and does not write names or photos to its logs. It keeps no copy to show anyone else.
Your family information is not sent anywhere while you type, edit or preview — only when you choose a download.
Photographs
Photos you add are prepared in your browser: resized to a sensible size for printing and stored with your project. The stored copy is re-encoded, which leaves behind the camera and location details that phones often embed in pictures. That prepared copy is what is sent when a photo appears on a design you download.
No face recognition, photo enhancement or other outside service is used on your pictures.
Optional analytics on public pages
To learn how people use our public pages — the home page, collections, guides, questions, privacy and terms — we can use Microsoft Clarity, an analytics service from Microsoft. It records how visitors click, scroll and move through those pages, including recordings of visits, and produces heatmaps. Clarity sets cookies in your browser, and the data it collects is sent to Microsoft and handled under Microsoft’s privacy statement.
It is off unless you allow it. On your first visit to a public page we ask; “Don’t allow” is as easy as “Allow analytics”, and nothing from Clarity is loaded until you allow it. Your answer is saved in this browser.
Clarity is never loaded in the studio or in My projects, where your family, photos and imported files are. When you go from a public page to the studio, the studio opens as a new page without Clarity. We tell Clarity not to use advertising storage.
You can change your mind at any time with “Privacy choices” at the bottom of every page. If you withdraw, we ask Clarity to erase its cookies, remove them from this browser and stop loading it; a page it was running in reloads without it.
What we do not do
- No accounts, sign-ins or email collection.
- No advertising or advertising trackers.
- No analytics or session recording in the studio or My projects, and none on the public pages unless you allow it.
- No third-party scripts in the studio or My projects. The only third-party script on this site is Microsoft Clarity, on public pages, after you allow it. Fonts and all other files are served from this site.
- In the studio and My projects the site sets a security policy that only allows the page to connect back to this site, so the page cannot quietly send your information to anyone else. On the public pages that policy also allows Microsoft Clarity’s addresses.
Technical logs
Like any website, the server and any hosting provider in front of it may keep standard technical logs of requests — such as the IP address, the address requested, the browser type, the response size and the time. Those logs record that a download was requested; the application does not add names, photos or other family details to them.
Backups and exported files
Because your projects live in your browser, clearing this site’s data, uninstalling the browser, or working in a private window can remove them. Browsers may also clear storage when a device runs very low on space. The download server keeps no copy, so it cannot bring a project back.
To keep a copy, export a project file from My projects. The file contains your family and photos, so store it somewhere private and share it only with people you trust. The same care applies to the PDFs and images you download.
Living relatives and children
Family trees often include people who are alive today, including children. Before you share a print or a file publicly, consider leaving out dates and places for living relatives, or ask them first. The studio lets you hide dates and places on any design.
Changes to this policy
If the way Family Tree Studio handles information changes — for example if the download server ever needed to keep anything, or a new online feature were added — this page will be updated before that change takes effect, and the date below the contents list will change.