Privacy Policy

DriveBalance is a single web page that runs entirely inside your browser. There is no server, no account, and no database. Nothing you connect to it is ever transmitted to us, because there is nowhere for it to be transmitted to.

Last updated: 25 July 2026

In one sentence

DriveBalance asks Google for the sizes and metadata of your Drive files, adds them up in your browser tab, shows you which files, types and duplicates are eating your storage, and stores that tally on your own device. It never reads a file's contents, never deletes anything, and never sends your data anywhere.

Who runs this

DriveBalance is an independent tool published at drivebalance.emergence.md. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Google LLC.

Contact for privacy questions: privacy@drivebalance.emergence.md

What data DriveBalance accesses

When you choose to sign in, DriveBalance requests exactly one Google OAuth scope:

Scope	What it grants	Why DriveBalance needs it
`https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly`	Read-only access to file metadata — names, sizes, types, dates, owners and folders. It does not grant access to file contents and cannot download anything.	File size is the entire product. Ranking your heaviest files, types, years and exact duplicates is impossible without reading each file's size and metadata.

This is the least permissive scope that can do the job. The broader drive.readonly scope would also work technically, but it would grant the ability to read and download the full contents of every file — access DriveBalance neither needs nor wants. No other scope is requested, now or conditionally.

Specifically, from each file DriveBalance reads:

the file identifier and name;
the size in bytes and the storage quota it uses (including prior versions);
the MIME type (video, image, PDF, folder, Google Doc, …);
the created and modified dates;
whether you own it, whether it is starred, and its parent folder id;
a content checksum (an md5 hash), used only to detect exact duplicates.

It does not request, receive, or store the contents of any file, nor download any file.

Where that data goes

Nowhere. The requests go from your browser directly to Google's API servers over HTTPS, and the responses come straight back to your browser tab. DriveBalance has no backend, no API server, no analytics pipeline that touches your files, and no third-party processor. Your Drive metadata is never seen by us or by anyone else.

The resulting index is written to your browser's local IndexedDB storage, on your own device, so that reopening the page does not force a full rescan. Your OAuth access token is held in sessionStorage and disappears when you close the tab. A single preference (whether starred files are treated as "keep") is held in localStorage.

How to delete it

Erase the local index — use "Sign out" in the app, or clear site data for drivebalance.emergence.md in your browser settings. This removes the IndexedDB index, the stored preference, and the cached token.
Revoke access entirely — visit your Google Account permissions page and remove DriveBalance. This invalidates the token immediately.

Because we hold nothing, there is no deletion request to send us and nothing for us to delete on your behalf.

Google API Services Limited Use disclosure

DriveBalance's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

In particular, DriveBalance does not:

transfer Google user data to any third party;
use Google user data for advertising, or serve ads of any kind;
sell Google user data, under any circumstances;
allow humans to read Google user data — no employee, contractor or operator of DriveBalance can access it, because it never leaves your device;
use Google user data to develop, improve or train generalized or non-personalized artificial intelligence or machine-learning models.

Site analytics

The site uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count page views. It is cookieless, sets no identifiers, and collects no personal data — only aggregate page-level counts. It is entirely separate from the Drive data path and can see nothing about your files.

DriveBalance sets no advertising or tracking cookies.

Children

DriveBalance is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially — in particular if a scope is ever added — the change will be published on this page with a new "last updated" date before it takes effect.