TextShelf

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 12, 2026 (what changed)

TextShelf LLC provides tools for collecting, reviewing, and deciding on documents and submissions. We have two products: the TextShelf web service at textshelf.com and the TextShelf app for Mac. This policy covers both. TextShelf LLC is located in Washington, DC.

A note before the details

The web service and the Mac app handle your data differently. On the web service, your files are uploaded to TextShelf's servers so reviewers can access them through a browser. In the Mac app, your files stay in your own iCloud Drive and TextShelf never receives a copy. We've tried to make each section below clear about which product it applies to.

What we collect — TextShelf web service (textshelf.com)

We collect an email address for each person who signs up for a TextShelf account, plus content (files, documents, images, text) that users upload to inboxes they participate in. We collect basic usage information needed to operate the service (e.g., which inboxes you belong to, when you signed in).

Payment information is handled by Stripe, a financial services company. TextShelf does not collect or store credit card information.

What we collect — TextShelf for Mac

The Mac app is designed to keep your work on your own devices and in your own iCloud account. TextShelf LLC collects no data through the Mac app — everything described below stays on your devices and in your own iCloud. Specifically:

  • Documents and annotations stay in your iCloud Drive. Your shelves (the .textshelf bundles), the PDFs inside them, and the annotations you make are stored in your iCloud Drive and synced between your devices by Apple. TextShelf LLC never receives copies of these files.
  • Sync metadata is stored in your personal CloudKit database. The app uses your Apple ID's private CloudKit container for sync coordination. Only you and the devices signed into your Apple ID can access this data. TextShelf LLC does not have access to it.
  • No account, no sign-in. The Mac app has no TextShelf account. It never asks for an email address or a password, and it sends nothing to TextShelf LLC.
  • Diagnostics. The Mac app does not include third-party analytics. Crash reports may be sent to Apple if you have opted into sharing diagnostics with developers in your macOS Privacy & Security settings; these reports come from Apple, not from us directly.

Who sees your information?

TextShelf will never sell, rent, or lease your email address or any content you submit to or store with our products.

On the web service: the owners and organizers of each TextShelf inbox can access the names, email addresses, and uploaded files of entrants submitting material to their specific inbox. For example, if you enter a play for a playwriting contest using TextShelf, the organizers of that contest can see your address and contact you with it.

In the Mac app: only you and the devices signed into your Apple ID can see your shelves, unless you explicitly share a shelf with someone else (planned for a future release). TextShelf LLC has no access to your shelves.

Outside services we rely on

These are every company that receives information about you through TextShelf, and what each one receives. Each is subject to its own privacy policy.

For the web service:

  • Fly.io, Inc. runs the web service and its database, in Ashburn, Virginia.
  • Tigris Data, Inc. stores the files people upload, in a private bucket, except on a shelf whose organization keeps its files in its own bucket.
  • Upstash, Inc. runs a short-lived cache beside the web service in Ashburn, Virginia. It holds the sign-in counters described under Cookies and tracking.
  • Google LLC sends the web service's email through Gmail, so it receives each message and the address it goes to. If you choose Sign In with Google, Google tells us your name and email address. The pages' typefaces load from Google Fonts, so Google receives your IP address and browser details when a page loads.
  • Apple Inc. tells us your email address if you choose Sign In with Apple, or a private relay address if you ask Apple to hide yours.
  • Stripe, Inc. processes payments. Stripe's script loads on the page where you choose a plan. TextShelf does not collect or store card numbers.
  • Anthropic, PBC runs two features for organizers: setting up a shelf from a call-for-submissions document the organizer uploads, and suggesting feedback phrases from the shelf's own guidelines and criteria. Only that organizer-provided material is sent. TextShelf never sends entrants' submissions to an AI service. Anthropic does not use this data to train its models.
  • Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry) receives error reports from the web service: what failed, where, and the address of the page. We don't send it IP addresses or cookies. A report about an email that failed to send includes the address it was going to.
  • GitHub, Inc. holds TextShelf's code and runs its automated jobs, among them the database backup, which is kept there for 30 days.

For the Mac app:

  • Apple Inc. provides iCloud Drive and CloudKit, which hold and sync your shelves in your own iCloud account.

How do we protect your files?

On the web service, documents are stored in a private bucket at Tigris. They can be opened by the shelf's organizers and the reviewers they authorize. One person operates TextShelf, and opens a shelf only to fix a problem, with the organizer's permission.

An organization on the Organization plan can keep a shelf's files in its own storage bucket instead. Those files are then stored by that organization's storage provider, under its terms; TextShelf keeps the shelf's records and reviews, and deletes the files from that bucket when they are deleted on TextShelf, for as long as the organization's keys still work.

Files stay until someone deletes them. An entrant can delete their own entry; an organizer can delete an entry or its file, or the whole shelf; and deleting an account deletes what is described under Controlling and deleting your information. Deleting removes the stored file, not only the record of it. TextShelf does not delete files when a review ends. Our database backups expire after 30 days, so a deleted record is gone from them within 30 days; uploaded files are not in those backups.

In the Mac app, your documents are protected by your iCloud account's security. You can also enable end-to-end encryption for sensitive fields in your shelves (planned for a future release). TextShelf LLC has no ability to decrypt content stored in your iCloud account.

Readers' own AI assistants

Each shelf that takes submissions states, before anyone submits, whether its organizers may use an AI assistant of their own on the work: none, one that marks passages as evidence for the criteria, or one that also drafts scores, which count only once a person adopts them. The submission form says which, and so does the receipt. A shelf of its members' own documents, such as a team's, states the same for its members' assistants. A shelf can tighten its rule at any time but cannot loosen it for work already sent. TextShelf's tools hold to it: an API token gets none of the words of work whose shelf allows no assistant. TextShelf cannot stop a person copying text into another service; our Terms bind every reader on a shelf to its rule.

Student work

Schools, universities and their committees use TextShelf to read students' work: theses, dissertations, applications and portfolios. When they do, the school decides who can open the shelf and what goes on it. TextShelf uses those files and records only to run the shelf for the school, and for nothing else. It shares them only with the outside services listed above, deletes them when the entry, the shelf or the account that holds them is deleted, and never sends a submission to an AI service.

Can TextShelf guarantee against unauthorized access to my content?

No. TextShelf follows recommended security practices to protect user information. Inbox owners, organizers, and reviewers must also take care to manage passwords and delete accessed files. Your account security depends in part on protecting your sign-in credentials and your Apple ID.

Children under the age of 13

TextShelf is not intended for children under the age of 13. If you are under 13, please do not provide any information to TextShelf.

Cookies and tracking

The TextShelf web service uses cookies only to deliver requested services (for example, keeping you signed in). We do not track you across other websites, and we do not pass cookies to third-party advertisers. The Mac app does not use third-party tracking.

To stop automated attacks, each attempt to sign in, sign up or reset a password is counted by IP address and by a summary of the browser's request headers. The counts expire within a day and are used for nothing else.

Controlling and deleting your information

On the web service, you may delete your account at any time from your account page. Deleting it deletes the shelves you opened on your own, with everything on them and their files; the entries you sent to other shelves, with their files; and the reviews and highlights you wrote. A team you own needs another owner first. Shelves you opened inside a team stay with the team, and posts and documents you wrote there stay without your name.

In the Mac app, your data lives in your own iCloud account. To delete it, remove the relevant .textshelf bundles from iCloud Drive and use iCloud settings to clear the app's CloudKit data. Uninstalling the app does not by itself remove your iCloud-stored data; you must remove it explicitly.

Policy updates

For important changes to this policy, registered users will be notified by email. No changes that reduce privacy rights on TextShelf will happen without user consent.

Changes on October 13, 2026

We added Readers' own AI assistants: each shelf now states whether its organizers may use an AI assistant of their own on submitted work. Every shelf, and everything submitted before this change, keeps the rule it had: no assistants. TextShelf still never sends submitted work to an AI service itself.

Changes on October 12, 2026

We added Student work, which says how TextShelf handles students' files when a school puts them on a shelf, and a paragraph on a shelf whose organization keeps its files in its own bucket. Nothing TextShelf does with your files changed.

Changes on October 10, 2026

We corrected this page to match what TextShelf does. It said that documents and related personal information were permanently deleted when organizers declared a review complete. TextShelf never did that; files stay until someone deletes them, as described above. It said files were stored in the United States, which we have not confirmed, so it no longer says so. And where it named "hosting and infrastructure providers", it now names each outside service and what it receives.

How to contact us

Write to us at admin@textshelf.com or via our contact form.

TextShelf LLC · 1025 Connecticut Ave NW Ste 615, Washington, DC 20036