Trombone

Privacy · effective October 9, 2026

What Trombone knows about you

Almost nothing, on purpose. Here is exactly what, why, and how to turn it off.

In short

  • Your PDF files never leave your computer. Not for processing, not for backup, not to “improve the service”.
  • No account, no advertising, no cookies, no analytics tool from another company.
  • This site counts downloads. The app sends anonymous error reports and usage statistics, and one switch turns them off.

On this site

The site sets no cookie and loads no tracker. It does one thing more than an ordinary page: it counts downloads.

When you click a download button, your request goes through trombonepdf.com first, which records:

  • the day (not the time);
  • the system you asked for, Windows or Mac;
  • the country, as inferred by Cloudflare, our host;
  • whether the request comes from a person or a bot (a link preview, a script);
  • a one-way code derived from your IP address, to count distinct visitors within a month.

We never keep your IP address. The key that makes the code changes every month and is destroyed at the end of the month: after that, nobody, us included, can link a code back to an address.

You are then sent to GitHub, which hosts the file. There, GitHub's privacy statement applies.

We keep these rows for 400 days; after that, only daily and monthly totals remain.

Like any host, Cloudflare processes your IP address to deliver the page; we keep no visit log.

In the app

Your documents stay with you. Opening, merging, splitting, annotating, signing, compressing, reading text (OCR): everything happens on your computer. No document is ever uploaded, anywhere.

To fix bugs and learn which features are used, the app sends two things, both anonymous:

  • Error reports, when something breaks: the error message, where it happened in the code, the version, your system, the operation in progress, the last actions before the error, and the size and page count of the PDF involved.
  • Usage statistics: that the app was opened, how long it was actively used, which features were used, the version, your system and the interface language.

Never your files, their names, your folders or their contents. A file name, a path or an email address that slips into an error message is removed on your computer, before sending. Each report carries a random identifier replaced every month; it points to neither you nor your computer. We do not keep your IP address.

Error reports go to our own server and are kept for 90 days. Statistics go to this site's infrastructure: we keep the detail for 13 months, then only anonymous totals. They serve only to fix and improve Trombone: never sold, never shared, never used for advertising.

To turn them off: Preferences, then “Send anonymous error reports and statistics”. Off means nothing is sent.

The app also contacts GitHub to check for updates, and downloads the text-recognition (OCR) models once if you use it. In both cases, nothing from your documents goes up.

Signing with your phone

If you choose to photograph your signature with your phone, the photo is encrypted on the phone with a key that exists only in the QR code shown by the app. The trombonepdf.com page encrypts the photo on your phone before sending it; the site's server receives neither the photo in clear nor the key, and only relays the encrypted photo to your computer. The encrypted copy is deleted as soon as your computer retrieves it, or after 10 minutes at the latest. No account is involved: the only number used is a random one-time session number, not linked to you or your computer, which disappears with the photo. Your IP address is processed briefly to limit abuse and is never kept.

Your rights

Quebec's Law 25, Canada's PIPEDA and Europe's GDPR give you rights of access, correction and deletion. In practice, we hold nothing that could find you: no name, no email, no IP address. Still have a question? Write to us.

Who is behind it

Trombone PDF is published by 9570-0720 Québec inc., Quebec, Canada. Contact: hello@madera.tools. If this page changes in a meaningful way, the date at the top changes too.