Format — Privacy Notice

Version 5 · 8 October 2026

Format is a desktop tool. It has no account system, no analytics, and no usage tracking of any kind. This notice lists every piece of information that ever leaves your PC, and what the Format website stores if you choose to sign in to it.

1. When you activate a licence key

None of this applies during the thirty-minute trial, which needs no key and makes no licence request at all, or afterwards if you only use Format to undo what it changed.

To us, to check your key

Format checks paid keys against our own server at format.74hrs.store. There is no third-party licensing company involved: we previously used one, and as of version 4 of this notice we do not. When you activate, and when Format re-checks your key afterwards, it sends:

• your licence key
• your PC ID — a one-way hash of your motherboard and CPU identifiers, not the identifiers themselves

We store a one-way hash of your key, the PC ID it is locked to, the date it was issued and runs until, and when it was last checked. Our server sees your IP address as any web server would.

Your key is locked to the first PC ID that uses it, which is how "one key, one PC" is enforced.

Format re-checks in the background from time to time. Between checks it works without a connection for a week, and after that the tweaks lock until it can check again. History and revert keep working either way.

To us

Activating also sends one message to our private Discord channel, so that shared or resold keys show up:

• whether activation was accepted or refused, and the reason given
• the tier and renewal date
• your PC ID, and a masked version of the key — first and last few characters only
• your IP address, as our own website sees it when the report arrives
• your Windows user name and PC name
• the version of Format you are running, and the time

The report goes to our website first, which passes it on to the channel. Format does not contact any other service to do this, and does not look your address up anywhere.

This happens when you press Activate. It does not happen during the trial, and it does not happen on the background re-checks.

Why: to prevent fraud, in particular one key being used by many people. Legal basis, if you are in the UK or EU: our legitimate interest in preventing licence fraud, and performing the contract you entered into when you bought a licence.

Who sees it: the owner of Format, in a private Discord channel that Discord hosts. It is not sold, shared or used for marketing.

How long: we hold your key record while the licence exists. The Discord channel history is kept while your licence is active, so a dispute can be checked against it.

2. When you sign in to the website

The desktop app has no account and never asks you to sign in. The website is separate and entirely optional — you can buy a key, download Format and use it without ever visiting it.

If you do sign in, we use Discord's sign-in with the identify scope only: your Discord username, avatar and user id. Not your email address, not your servers, not your messages. That sits in a signed cookie in your browser.

If you ask for a key on the dashboard, we store one record for it:

• your Discord id and the display name shown at the time
• the PC ID you gave us — the same one-way hash described in section 1
• the tier you asked for
• once the key is signed: the key itself, the date it was issued and the date the period ends
• a short note we may add, such as where the payment was made

Why: so a key you paid for is waiting for you in one place instead of being lost in a chat log. Legal basis, if you are in the UK or EU: performing the contract you entered into when you bought a licence.

Where it lives: a Supabase database. Only the site's server can read it; it is not public, not sold, not shared and not used for marketing. There is no payment information in it — payment happens in Discord and we never see your card.

How long: while your licence is live, plus the current subscription period, so a renewal or a dispute can be checked. Ask us in Discord and we will delete it sooner.

The website has no analytics, no tracking pixels and no third-party scripts. Nothing you type into the dashboard is sent anywhere except to us.

3. When Format checks for updates

Format asks GitHub whether a newer release exists. GitHub sees your IP address and the request, as it would for any download. No identifier of yours is attached.

4. When Format downloads cover art

If you leave "Download cover art" on in Settings, Format fetches game cover images from Steam's public image servers. Steam sees your IP address and which game's art was requested. Turning the setting off stops this completely.

5. If you turn on the Discord profile card

Off unless you switch it on in Settings. When it is on, and only while Format is open, your Discord profile shows that you are using Format, which screen you are on, how many changes you have queued, and your plan — the same sort of card a game shows.

Everyone who can see your Discord profile can see it. That is the point of the feature, but it is worth saying plainly.

Two things it never contains: the name of any tweak, and anything about your PC — no computer name, no user name, no hardware, no licence key.

Nothing is sent to us, and nothing is sent to Discord's servers by Format. The card is drawn by the Discord client already running on your own PC, which Format talks to over a local connection that never leaves the machine. Discord then shows it to your friends under their own privacy policy. Switching it off removes the card immediately, and closing Format removes it too.

6. What stays on your PC and is never sent

• The undo journal: every change Format made and the value it replaced.
• Crash logs in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Format\logs, written only when something goes wrong. Send one to support yourself if you want help with it.
• Your settings and licence file.
• The scan of your PC: installed games, hardware readings, and which tweaks are applied.

Format has no telemetry. It does not record which tweaks you use, how long you use it, or anything about your games beyond showing them to you.

7. Your rights

If you are in the UK or EU, you may ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, or object to it being held. In practice that means two things: your key record and the activation messages, both described in section 1, and your licence record on the website described in section 2 — which since version 4 of this notice are the same database. Those are the only records we keep. Ask in our Discord server, with your PC ID or the first few characters of your key.

8. Children

Format is not intended for children under 13.

9. Changes

If this notice changes, the new version ships with the release it applies to, and Format asks you to accept the terms again.