zFolio Privacy Policy

zFolio Privacy Policy

Version: 1.1.1
Effective Date: October 26, 2026
App: zFolio on the web. Apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad are planned; we’ll update this policy before they are released.
Developer: Bristlecone IT Services, LLC

What changed in version 1.1.1 (effective October 26, 2026):

  • You can now turn off sync measurements in Settings.

This policy explains what zFolio stores, where it stores it, who can see it and how you can delete it. It covers the zFolio web app, including what we do when you connect an agent to your account. We’ll update it to cover the zFolio apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad before they are released.

The Short Version

  • zFolio is a Markdown editor that syncs your documents across your devices. To sync them, we keep a copy of your documents on our servers.
  • We do not sell your information. We show no ads, and we do not track you across other apps or websites. zFolio contains no advertising or analytics code from other companies.
  • zFolio does not use end-to-end encryption, so our systems can read your documents. Your connection to us is encrypted.
  • If you connect an agent, such as an AI assistant or a script you choose, we send it the documents you allow, at your direction. What it does with them is governed by whoever provides it, not by this policy.
  • You can move a document to the trash, and the trash is emptied after 30 days. You can also ask us to delete things for good. Our backups can hold a deleted item for up to about 30 days.

Who We Are

zFolio is published by Bristlecone IT Services, LLC, a Tennessee limited liability company (“we”, “us”), as part of zSuite. We are based in Tennessee, in the United States. Our mailing address is at the end of this policy.

What zFolio Stores on Your Device

The zFolio web app keeps these things in your browser’s storage on your device:

  • Your documents. Each document and its history of changes, so you can work offline and so changes can sync when you reconnect. Text you delete may remain in this saved history on your device for a period after deletion, until the local history is compacted, or until you remove the document from the device or clear the browser’s storage for zFolio.
  • Changes not sent yet. Edits made offline that have not reached our servers.
  • Copies we deleted from the server. If a document is deleted on our servers, the web app keeps its copy on your device until you discard it, or until you remove it when you sign out.
  • Random identifiers. A random account identifier and a random device identifier. They are not made from your name or any other detail about you.
  • The app shell. A saved copy of the app’s own pages and files, so zFolio can open offline. It does not hold your sync traffic.

When you sign out, zFolio removes its saved copy of the app from that browser. It also removes its copies of your documents, unless some changes haven’t reached your account yet or the browser holds copies we deleted from the server. Then zFolio asks first: you can export your documents, keep the copies, or choose Remove to delete them from the device. Copies you keep stay on the device until you remove them. Other zFolio accounts can’t open them in the app, but they aren’t encrypted, so anyone who can use that browser profile could read them. On a shared or public computer, choose Remove.

If your device is signed out from another device, or its session ends, zFolio stops syncing on that device, but its copies of your documents stay there until you remove them, for example by signing in, signing out and choosing Remove, or by clearing the browser’s storage for zFolio.

If your browser blocks this storage, zFolio can’t be used in that browser. It shows the sign-in screen with a note that storage is blocked, and keeps nothing on the device.

This policy covers zFolio on the web. We’ll update it before zFolio apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad are released.

On the web, zFolio asks your browser for the file picker and folder picker (to import files), downloads (to export), and the clipboard through normal copy and paste. It does not ask for your camera, microphone, location or notifications.

What We Store on Our Servers

We store the following on servers run for us by Cloudflare:

  • Account details. A random account identifier, the email address you sign in with and the time the account was created. We use your email address to sign you in and to help you get back into your account. For each passkey you add, we store its public key, an identifier, a sign-in counter, a name and when it was added and last used. The secret part of a passkey stays on your device or in your password manager, and we never receive it.
  • Sessions. For each signed-in session, a scrambled (hashed) copy of its identifier, the account and device it belongs to, and when it started and was last renewed.
  • Device records. From sign-in on, for each device you use: its identifier, a name, its platform, when it was last active and its approximate city and country (see Accounts and Devices).
  • Your documents. The title and text of each document. To let different devices merge their edits, we store each document in a form that records its changes. Text you delete is removed from that stored form on our servers, usually within a few minutes, but it can remain in backups made before you deleted it (see How Long We Keep Information). We also store a list of your documents and folders, with each document’s title or folder’s name, which folder each one is in, and whether it is in the trash. For each document, the list also holds whether it is pinned, when it was last edited, and a marker of the last change from each device.
  • Records about your documents. For each document: its identifier, your account identifier, the folder it is in, and the times it was created, updated, trashed and purged. For each folder: its identifier and the identifier of the folder it is in, but never its name. Our account database holds these records. It never holds the text of your documents.
  • Backups. Daily backups of the documents in each account that has changed, including documents in the trash, kept in private storage.
  • Agent access records. If you connect an agent: the name it gives itself, the web or app address it asked us to send you back to, which documents or folders it may reach, when you approved it, when the approval ends, when and why it was revoked, if it was, and the last day it was used. We keep its codes and tokens only in a scrambled (hashed) form. See Agents You Connect below.
  • Logs and error records. See Logs, IP Addresses and Error Records below.

Where Your Data Is Kept

We use Cloudflare for everything that runs and stores zFolio. Our account database is in eastern North America. Each document is processed and stored on Cloudflare’s network near where it is first opened, usually the region of the person who first syncs it. It is not kept in a fixed country, so it may be stored outside your country. Our backups are also stored in eastern North America.

No End-to-End Encryption

zFolio does not use end-to-end encryption. Your connection to our servers is encrypted in transit. We do not add our own encryption to your documents on our servers. The storage services we use may encrypt stored data under their own practices. Our systems read your documents in order to sync and back them up, so people who work for us can reach them when that is needed for support, security, backups or legal compliance. We can’t promise that any system is perfectly secure.

Images From Other Sites

The preview in zFolio blocks images that come from other websites. You can allow them for one document, for the current session. If you do, your browser loads those images directly from the other sites, with no referrer information, and those sites’ own privacy practices apply.

Accounts and Devices

You create your account with a one-time code sent to your email address, and you can then add a passkey. After that, you sign in with your passkey, or with a new emailed code if you can’t use it. You can use a different email address to make a separate account. zFolio doesn’t use passwords, and you can’t sign in with an account from another company. The secret part of a passkey stays with you. We never receive it.

An account can have up to 10 active devices. A device is active if it has been used in the last 30 days. If you go over the limit, zFolio shows each device’s name, platform, when it was last active and its approximate city and country, so you can choose which to remove. You can remove up to 5 devices in 30 days yourself; for more, write to us.

For each signed-in device, we keep only its approximate city and country. We work this out from the IP address the device connects from, but we don’t store the IP address in our database. We update the city and country each time the device renews its session, and we keep only the latest. You can see each device’s city and country in your device list. We delete them 30 days after that device signs out.

To keep each account to one person, we record the devices that use an account and their approximate city and country. A daily check looks for unusual patterns. If it finds one, zFolio shows you a notice suggesting that you review your devices, and we may review repeated patterns ourselves. The check never suspends an account on its own.

Agents You Connect

You can connect an agent, such as an AI assistant or a script you choose, to your zFolio account. You approve it in zFolio while signed in, and you choose which documents or folders it may reach: all your documents, only the folders you pick (with the folders inside them), or only the documents you pick. Agents can only read. zFolio shows you the name the agent gives itself, but we don’t verify it.

  • Connecting an AI app. zFolio offers a read-only connector at https://zfolio.cc/mcp for AI apps that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP). When you add it to such an app, zFolio asks you to sign in and approve the app, and you choose what it may read. An approval allows reading only.
  • We send your documents at your direction. When an agent lists, searches or reads your documents, we send it the titles, folder names and text it asks for, within what you allowed. Once the agent receives them, it and whoever provides it handle them under their own terms and privacy policies, not this one. We don’t control what they do, and we can’t take back what they received.
  • What an agent can’t do. An agent can’t change, move or delete anything in zFolio, publish your documents, or make links to share them. An agent can’t read anything in the trash.
  • How long access lasts. An approval lasts up to 90 days. You can see your agents and revoke any of them in Settings at any time. A revoked agent loses access from its next request, and we delete its tokens. When you ask to delete your account, we revoke all your agents at once, and canceling the deletion doesn’t restore them.
  • What we keep. We keep the agent access records described under What We Store on Our Servers. We don’t store the IP address an agent connects from in our database, and we design our logs and error records so they don’t hold the text or titles an agent reads, its searches or its tokens. Cloudflare’s request samples, described below, include agent requests.

Logs, IP Addresses and Error Records

  • Request logs. Cloudflare keeps a sample of about 1% of requests to the app, including sync and agent requests, for 7 days, and then deletes it. A sampled request includes the IP address, the browser user agent and an approximate location (country, city and the Cloudflare data center that handled it). It may also include more location details, such as postal code, and the network. It also includes the address of the request, which can include a query string and your account or document identifier, and the log lines our code wrote while handling it. Our log lines don’t include your IP address. Only people who operate zFolio can see these samples.
  • Error records. When something fails on our servers, we keep an error record. It holds the kind of error, a message only if we wrote it ourselves, the places in our code where it happened, when it happened, and a document identifier. We design these records so they do not hold your documents, titles, cookies, tokens, email addresses or IP addresses. We keep error records for up to 30 days.
  • IP addresses. We don’t store your IP address in our database. We use it to work out a device’s approximate city and country, as described under Accounts and Devices. Our rate limits for signed-in use are tied to your account, and for an agent, also to its approval. To limit repeated sign-in attempts and repeated agent registrations, we briefly use a one-way hash of your IP address (a scrambled form that can’t be turned back into the address). It exists only in Cloudflare’s short-lived rate-limit counters, and we never write it to our database or logs. As a backstop against abuse, Cloudflare limits how many requests a single IP address can make to zFolio in a few seconds. It counts them only for that short window, and we don’t store the address. If Cloudflare’s security rules block or challenge a request, Cloudflare may record a sample of such requests, including the IP address, network and country, in a security log that only people who operate zFolio can see, for up to 31 days. Cloudflare, which delivers and protects zFolio, processes IP addresses and browser information to do that, under its own practices. Its request logs are described above.
  • Error counts. We also count errors in aggregate, using Cloudflare’s analytics service. These counts hold no identifiers, only the kind of error, where it happened and the app version. Cloudflare keeps them for its fixed period of 3 months.
  • Sync measurements. To measure how our sync servers perform, we count a sample of about 1 in 10 of these events, using the same Cloudflare service: our servers loading a document or a document list from storage (with which of the two it was and a size range), and a sync connection ending (with how it ended, about how long it lasted and how many messages it sent). These counts aren’t tied to your account. They hold no account, document, device or session identifier, no IP address and none of your content. Cloudflare keeps them for its fixed period of 3 months. Sync measurements are on by default. You can turn them off in Settings. While they’re off, we stop recording sync measurements for your account. This takes effect right away on the device where you turn them off, and within about an hour on your other devices. Turning them off doesn’t delete measurements already recorded, because those aren’t tied to your account.
  • Raw error logs. Cloudflare’s own error tools may show raw error messages. Their error details are kept for up to 7 days and may include the IP address of the request. Only people who operate zFolio can see them.
  • Backup logs. Our backup logs can include account identifiers.

Apart from these error counts and sync measurements, we do not use analytics, and we use no tracking or bot-profiling tools.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

  • Browser storage. The web app uses your browser’s storage and a saved copy of the app shell, as described above. They are not cookies.
  • Sign-in cookie. When you sign in on the web, zFolio sets a sign-in cookie to keep you signed in. Page scripts can’t read it, and it is sent only over secure connections. It ends after 30 days without use, and after 90 days at most. When they are released, the zFolio apps for Mac, iPhone and iPad will keep you signed in with a session key stored securely on the device, and send it with each request instead of a cookie.
  • No advertising cookies. We use no advertising or tracking cookies. Cloudflare may set cookies it needs to protect zFolio.
  • Do Not Track. We do not track visitors across websites and we do not sell or share personal information for advertising, so Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals do not change anything here.

How We Use Information

We use information only to provide, secure and improve zFolio: to run your account and devices, to sync, store and back up your documents, to give the agents you connect the access you approve, to keep zFolio secure, to find and fix errors and abuse, to enforce our Terms of Use, to provide support, and to comply with the law. We use your email address to sign you in, to send you one-time codes and to help you get back into your account. We also use it to send essential account notices: when a passkey is added, when you ask us to delete your account (with the date it will be deleted) and when that’s done, and when we make a material change to this policy or our Terms of Use. We don’t send marketing email.

We do not use your documents for advertising, and we do not sell them.

How We Share Information

We do not sell your information. We do not share it with other companies for their marketing, advertising or other independent use.

  • Cloudflare runs zFolio’s servers, storage, delivery, security and logs. It receives the data described in this policy.
  • Email delivery. Cloudflare sends our one-time codes and account notices. It receives your email address and the message.
  • Apple. If zFolio apps are later offered on the App Store, Apple will handle the download under its own terms and privacy policy.
  • Agents you connect. We send an agent the documents, titles and folder names it asks for, within what you allowed, at your direction. Whoever provides the agent handles them under its own terms and privacy policy.
  • Legal and safety. We may disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect zFolio, our users or the public from fraud or serious harm.
  • Business transfer. If zFolio is transferred to a successor or to a business entity formed to carry it on, information may be transferred with it, and this policy will continue to apply until it is changed as described below.

How Long We Keep Information, and Deleting It

  • Trash. When you move a document to the trash, you can restore it for 30 days. After that, we permanently delete it from our servers, usually within a few hours.
  • Deleting for good. In the trash, you can delete a document or folder for good, or empty the trash to delete everything in it for good. Emptying the trash deletes each item this way, and it works only while you’re online. We delete the content from our servers right away. If that fails, our hourly cleanup finishes it. A small record without any content stays, as described below, and copies in our backups age out in about 30 days.
  • Backups. Each day, we back up each account that has changed, and keep each backup for about 30 days. We also keep a copy of your newest backup. Once all of your documents are gone, the next daily run deletes that copy. A deleted item leaves our next backup, but it can stay in earlier backups for about 30 days, or longer if a backup of your account fails.
  • A record that a document existed. After a document is deleted, we keep a record with its identifier, your account identifier and a few timestamps. We keep the identifier for good, so it is never used again. It holds none of your content. When your account is deleted, we remove the link between this record and your account.
  • Your account. You can start deleting your account in the app, or by writing to us at the address in the Contact section. If you start it in the app, we complete the deletion 7 days after your request, and we email you the date. Until then, your account works normally, including sync and signing in on a new device, so you can sign in anywhere and choose Cancel Deletion in Settings. The exception is agents: your request revokes them all at once (for a request by mail, once we process it), and canceling the deletion doesn’t restore them. You’d need to approve each one again. When your account is deleted, we delete it and its documents from our servers. Copies in our backups then age out in about 30 days, as described under Backups.
  • Sessions. A session ends after 30 days without use, and after 90 days at most. We delete it when you sign out, or within about an hour after it ends.
  • Agent access records. We delete an agent’s codes and tokens within about an hour after they expire, and at once when you revoke the agent. We keep the rest of its record for 30 days after its approval ends or is revoked, so the app can show you recently ended approvals, and then delete it. When you ask to delete your account, we revoke all your agents and delete their codes and tokens at once, and when your account is deleted, we delete all of its agent records. An agent’s own registration holds its name and web addresses and isn’t linked to your account. If no one approves it, we delete it about an hour after the agent last tries to connect. Once it has been approved, we delete it within 30 days after its last approval ends.
  • Device locations. We delete a device’s approximate city and country 30 days after that device signs out.
  • One-time codes. We store a one-time code only in a scrambled (hashed) form, with the email address it was sent to. It’s valid for 10 minutes. We delete it when it’s used, after 5 wrong tries, or within about an hour after it expires.
  • Logs and error records. We keep error records for up to 30 days. Error counts and sync measurements hold no identifiers, and Cloudflare keeps them for 3 months. Cloudflare keeps request samples for 7 days, and keeps its security log as described under Logs, IP Addresses and Error Records.
  • On your devices. Deleting a document on our servers does not remove copies already saved on your devices, or files you exported. You delete those where they are kept. Signing out of the web app removes its copies from that browser, unless you choose to keep them. Being signed out from another device, or a session ending, doesn’t remove them. Text you delete may also remain in a document’s local history on your device for a period, until that history is compacted.
  • What may remain. We may keep information that the law requires us to keep, or that we need to resolve disputes or enforce our Terms of Use. Apple keeps its own records under its own policies.

Your Choices and Rights

You can view and edit your documents in zFolio. You can import and export your documents as files. You can trash and restore documents and folders. In the trash, you can delete a document or folder for good, or empty the trash. You can also see the agents you connected, and revoke them, in Settings.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information. We will also consider requests from anyone, as a goodwill practice and not as a legal obligation. Send requests by mail to the address in the Contact section. You can also start deleting your account in the app, and cancel it in Settings within 7 days. We may need to verify your identity, and we will respond within the time the law requires. If we deny a request, you can write to us and ask us to reconsider.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Security

We use reasonable safeguards, such as encrypted connections and access controls that keep each account’s documents separate. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, so we can’t guarantee security. If a breach affects personal information, we will notify affected people as the law requires.

Children

zFolio is for a general audience of people 13 and older. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, write to us and we will delete it.

Where Information Is Processed

zFolio is operated from the United States. Our account database and backups are in eastern North America, your documents may be stored outside your country as described under Where Your Data Is Kept, and our servers and storage are provided by Cloudflare, which may also process information in other countries where it operates. If you use zFolio from outside the United States, your information is transferred to us in the United States, and it is stored and processed where our providers operate, as described under Where Your Data Is Kept. zFolio is not offered in every country or region.

Changes to This Policy

Each version of this policy has a version number and an Effective Date at the top. If we change it, we will publish the new version at the same address, https://bristleconeit.com/zsuite/zfolio/privacy/, with a new version number and Effective Date. zFolio is in beta. While it is, a material change may take effect as soon as we publish it, and we will tell you about it in the app or on the page where this policy is published. When zFolio leaves beta, we will say so in the app and on that page. After that, we will give at least 7 days’ notice, in the app, on that page or by email, before a material change to this policy takes effect. We may make a change take effect sooner only if the law requires it or if it is needed to deal with an urgent security issue, and if we do, we will tell you as soon as we can.

Contact

By mail only:

Bristlecone IT Services, LLC, PO Box 296, Townsend, TN 37882