Privacy Policy

Last updated: 30 October 2026

Who we are

RateTheThings is a free, independently operated web app for rating and ranking things. This policy covers the website at ratethethings.com and the app at ratethethings.com/app.

Using RateTheThings without an account

This is the default. Your lists, items, ratings, notes, and images are stored in your own browser using IndexedDB. They are not transmitted to us, and we have no way to read them. Clearing your browser data deletes them permanently, which is why the app offers a one-tap JSON export you keep yourself.

There are two exceptions. The catalog search feature contacts external databases even when you are logged out (see Catalog search), and a message you send through the feedback form reaches us (see Feedback).

If you create an account

Accounts are created by signing in with Google, or with a one-time code we email you. We never see or store your Google password, and email sign-in uses no password at all. When you sign in, we receive and store:

Data	Why we hold it
Name	Shown as your display name to you and to friends you connect with. Google provides it; with email sign-in, you choose it, and you can change it.
Email address	Identifies your account so the same login always reaches the same data.
Profile picture	Google accounts only. Shown as your avatar. We store the image URL from your provider, not a copy of the image.
Sign-in tokens from your provider	Required to complete and maintain the sign-in. Not used for anything else.
Sign-in codes	With email sign-in, the 6-digit code we email you, stored only as a hash. Deleted once used, after three wrong tries, or after 5 minutes.
Sign-in email log	For each code we email, the time and a keyed hash of the address (not the address itself), so one address cannot be flooded with codes and we stay within our email provider's limits. Deleted after two days.
Sign-in request counts	For each network address that asks to sign in, a keyed hash of the address (not the address itself) and a count of its recent requests, so no one can flood sign-in. Deleted after a day.
Session records	A session token, its expiry, plus the IP address and browser user-agent from sign-in. Keeps you signed in and lets us identify suspicious session activity.

We request only your basic profile and email from Google. We do not request access to your contacts, posts, friends lists, photos, or anything else in your Google account.

Cloud backup

Signing in turns cloud backup on. The app then uploads a snapshot of your app data (lists, items, ratings, rating history, notes, and any images you attached) to our storage, where it is associated with your account, and uploads a new one after you make changes. It exists so you can restore your data on a new device or after clearing your browser. You can turn off “Automatic cloud backup” on the app's Backup & data page: that stops new uploads, and backups already made stay until you delete your account.

• Backups are private to your account. No other user can request them.
• We keep your latest backup plus up to twelve earlier versions: the five most recent, saved at most once an hour, and the first from each of the last seven days a backup was made. A bad snapshot does not destroy a good one, and older versions are deleted automatically.
• We do not read, mine, or analyse the contents of your backups.
• You can turn on end-to-end encryption with a passphrase of your choosing. Backups are then encrypted on your device before upload, and our servers only ever store ciphertext we cannot read. The passphrase never leaves your device; if you lose it, we cannot recover an encrypted backup for you.
• Without that passphrase, backups are encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest by our storage provider, which means we technically could access them. We do not, but you should know the difference.

Friends and comparing taste

Adding a friend is opt-in and works through an invite link you generate and send. Invite links expire after 7 days. If someone accepts, we store the fact that the two of you are connected.

To compare taste, the app uploads a compare profile once you have at least one friend. It holds the name and emoji of each of your lists, and the name and overall score of every item you have rated in them. Every friend you connect with can read that whole profile, along with your display name and avatar. They cannot see your notes, photos, per-dimension ratings, custom fields, rating history, unrated items, backups, or email. The compare profile is not covered by backup end-to-end encryption, because your friends must be able to read it. Removing a friend stops sharing with them.

Published lists

You can publish a single list to a public share link (ratethethings.com/p/…). This is strictly opt-in and off unless you choose it, per list.

• A published list is readable by anyone who has the link, without an account. Treat the link as public even though it is unguessable.
• By default we ask search engines not to index share pages, though a link can still be indexed or reshared if you post it somewhere public.
• You can choose to let search engines find a published list. This is a separate opt-in, off unless you turn it on, per list. Its share page is then listed for search engines once it has at least five rated items, and its name, item names, and ratings can appear in search results. Your name, email, and account are never shown on a share page. Turning this off, unpublishing, or revoking your links asks search engines to drop the page, but they can take days or weeks to do so, and we cannot control copies they or others have already made. Turning it off does not make the link private again: anyone who already found it can still open it. Unpublishing is what breaks the link.
• Lists from an account less than a week old are not offered to search engines until the account is a week old, so no one can sign up just to fill search results with ads.
• A published snapshot contains the list's name, emoji, color, rating scale, any star labels you wrote, its dimension names and weights, the template it started from, and your ranking order; and for each rated item its name, its ratings and total, whether you would repeat it, and its catalog id when you linked it to one (for example a TMDB film id). Notes, custom fields, images, and rating history are never included, and published lists are not covered by backup end-to-end encryption, because anyone with the link must be able to read them.
• Unpublishing removes the list from our storage and breaks the link. You can also revoke every share link you have ever created at once from your account page. Copies others have already saved are outside our control.

Catalog search

When you type an item's name into a list linked to a catalog, such as movies or books, the app searches as you type. Your search text is sent through our server to the matching public database: TMDB for movies and TV shows, Open Library for books, MusicBrainz for albums, IGDB for video games, or BoardGameGeek for board games. Those services receive the search text and our server's request, not your identity or your account. This happens whether or not you are signed in.

The cover thumbnails in search results, and the cover saved to your device when you pick a result, load directly from those services' image hosts (image.tmdb.org, covers.openlibrary.org, coverartarchive.org and archive.org, and images.igdb.com). Like any image on the web, those requests show the host your IP address and browser. Their handling of these requests is governed by their own privacy policies.

This product uses TMDB and the TMDB APIs but is not endorsed, certified, or otherwise approved by TMDB.

Feedback

The app's “Send feedback” form sends us the message you write and nothing else about you. It is not linked to your account, even when you are signed in, and the form does not send your session cookie. If you want a reply, you can add an email address (or, when signed in, tick the box to use your account's email). We use that address only to answer that message: never for newsletters or marketing, and never shared.

We keep feedback for one year and then delete it automatically. Deleting your account also deletes any feedback that gave your account's email as the reply address. To have a message removed sooner, send another message asking us to.

Cookies

We use two cookies, both set only when you sign in: a session cookie (__Secure-better-auth.session_token), so the server knows the request is yours, and, when you sign in with Google, a state cookie (__Secure-better-auth.state) that expires after five minutes and protects that sign-in from forgery. Neither is used for tracking, profiling, or advertising, and neither is shared with anyone. There are no advertising cookies, no analytics cookies, and no third-party cookies. Signing out invalidates the session.

The app also uses your browser's local storage for your own data and preferences. That is not a cookie and never leaves your device.

Who else touches your data

We keep this list short on purpose.

• Cloudflare hosts the site, the API, the database, and backup storage, and runs the bot check (Turnstile) on the email sign-in form. All account data and backups live on Cloudflare infrastructure.
• Google handles sign-in if you create an account. Google necessarily learns that you signed in to RateTheThings. It does not receive your ratings or list data.
• Resend delivers sign-in code emails if you sign in with email. It receives your email address and the code, and keeps a record of sent messages for up to 30 days.
• TMDB, Open Library, MusicBrainz, IGDB, and BoardGameGeek receive catalog search text, and their image hosts serve cover images, as described above.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers, data brokers, or analytics companies. If we are ever legally compelled to disclose data, we will comply with valid legal process.

How long we keep things

• Account record: until you delete your account.
• Backups: latest plus up to twelve earlier versions (the five most recent, saved at most once an hour, and the first from each of the last seven days a backup was made), until replaced by newer ones or until you delete your account.
• Sessions: until they expire or you sign out.
• Sign-in codes: until used, or 5 minutes.
• Sign-in email log: two days, then deleted.
• Sign-in request counts: one day, then deleted.
• Friend invites: 7 days, then they expire.
• Feedback messages: one year, then deleted.
• Published lists: until you unpublish or delete your account.
• No account: nothing to keep. Your data is on your device and stays there.

Deleting your data

Everything here is self-serve. You do not need to ask us, and we do not gatekeep it.

• Local data: delete lists and items in the app. They go to the trash, where you can restore them for 30 days. After that, or as soon as you empty the trash, the app erases them from your device, photos included. A deleted list that still has a share link is kept until the app has turned the link off. What it keeps is a bare record of each deletion, an internal id and a date with no names or content, for one year, so that merging an older backup cannot bring the deleted data back. Clearing the site's data in your browser settings erases everything at once. If you never made an account, this is all of your data.
• Deleted data in cloud backups: a backup never contains what is in the trash, so anything you delete is missing from every backup made after that. Earlier versions made before you deleted it still contain it until newer backups replace them, once a backup has been made on seven more days. Backups carry the bare deletion records described above, so your other devices move the same things to their trash when they restore.
• Published lists: unpublish from the list's share settings in the app. This removes the snapshot from our storage and breaks the share link.
• Friends: removing a friend ends the connection and stops sharing your compare profile with them.
• Your whole account: use the delete-account control in the app's account settings. It erases your account record, every backup version, your compare profile, your friend connections, your published lists, and any feedback that gave your account's email as the reply address. This is immediate and permanent, so export your data first if you want to keep it.

Your data is also exportable at any time as a JSON file from the app, with or without an account. Revoking RateTheThings' access from your Google account settings stops future sign-ins, but does not by itself delete data we already hold. Use the delete-account control for that.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example the EEA/UK under GDPR, or California under CCPA), you may have rights to access, correct, export, or delete your personal data, and to object to certain processing. RateTheThings is built so you can exercise those rights yourself, without asking permission: the app's export gives you a copy of your data, and the delete-account control erases it. See Deleting your data. Where we need a legal basis, ours is your consent (which you give by choosing to create an account) and our legitimate interest in operating and securing the service. EEA/UK users also have the right to complain to their local data protection authority.

Security

All traffic is encrypted with HTTPS. Backups are stored under per-account keys and every request for them is checked against your session. Unless you turn on end-to-end encryption, backups are readable by us, as noted above. No service can promise perfect security, but the strongest protection here is structural: if you never create an account, we hold nothing to lose.

Children

RateTheThings is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. An account created by a child can be removed with the delete-account control described in Deleting your data.

Where your data lives

Our infrastructure runs on Cloudflare's global network, so data may be processed on servers outside your country, including the United States. Cloudflare provides the safeguards for those transfers as our hosting provider.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your data, we will update this page and the “last updated” date above. Material changes will be announced in the app. Continuing to use RateTheThings after a change means you accept the updated policy.