Your map lives in its link
Mind Map Town has no accounts and no database. Every title, note, link, to-do, color, and position in your map is packed into the link itself, in the part after the # symbol (like mindmap.town/#m=3&n=0;...).
When you open a map, your browser asks our host only for the part before the # and keeps the rest to itself, so your map never reaches us. (That depends on the # staying a #. If an app garbles a link so the # turns into "%23", the whole thing, map included, gets sent as an ordinary address, and it won't open as a map.)
The app runs entirely in your browser. It has no code that sends your map anywhere, and its security settings block it from sending data to any server (ours included) or loading anything from other companies.
What we collect
Nothing about your maps. There are no accounts, so there are no names, emails, or passwords either. (A chat app's connector request carries a map through, and nothing of it is kept; see In chat apps.)
Cloudflare, our host, does show us some visit details in its dashboard: totals, like how many visits the site gets and from which countries, and, for a limited time, a sample of individual visits with details like IP address, browser, and the page address (never the part after the #). We don't use these to track or profile anyone, and none of it includes your map.
What your browser keeps
Your browser saves four small settings on your own device and never sends them to us.
- Theme (
mind-map-town-theme): light or dark. Saved only if you flip the theme switch; otherwise the site stays dark. - Welcome panel (
mind-map-town-welcome-seen): remembers that you closed the welcome panel, so it doesn't greet you on every visit. - Sound (
mind-map-town-sound): on or off. Saved only if you flip the sound switch. - Motion (
mind-map-town-motion): fewer animations. Saved only while the Reduce motion switch is on; otherwise the site follows your device.
That's the whole candy jar. Your maps never go in it (or in cookies), though your browser history and bookmarks do keep their links. To empty the jar, clear the site data for mindmap.town in your browser settings.
What our host sees
Mind Map Town is hosted on Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare gets some basics every time your browser loads the site. These include your IP address (the number that identifies your internet connection, which also hints at your rough location), the kind of browser and device you're using, the page you asked for (without the part after the #), the site that sent you (if that site shares it), and the time. These are needed to deliver the site and protect it from attacks. Cloudflare runs data centers all over the world, so this may happen outside your country.
Mind Map Town sets no cookies. If Cloudflare ever needs to check that a visitor isn't a bot (a "verify you are human" page, for example), it may set a short-lived security cookie of its own.
Cloudflare also asks browsers that support it, like Chrome and Edge, to send a short report if something goes wrong reaching the site, like a connection that times out or a page that comes back with an error. Your browser remembers that request for up to a week. Successful visits never send a report, and Safari, Firefox, and every browser on iPhone and iPad don't send them at all. A report says what went wrong: the address (without the part after the #), the kind of error, how long it took, and sometimes the page that linked you there. Like any visit, it arrives with your IP address and browser type. Cloudflare says it uses the IP address only to work out a rough location (country, metro area, and network) and doesn't store it. A report never includes your map.
Cloudflare handles these details on our behalf, and it also uses traffic data to keep its own network secure. Its privacy policy explains how. Cloudflare sends questions about a website's visitors back to that website, so if you have any, ask us.
What we don't do
- no analytics scripts or visitor tracking
- no ads, and no cookies from us
- no selling or sharing your data (beyond the visit basics our host handles for us, we don't have any)
- no scripts, fonts, or images from other companies (even the maker's photo comes from mindmap.town)
- no microphone or camera (the pops and chimes are made right in your browser, and nothing is recorded)
Downloads and embeds
PDF, Markdown, and HTML downloads and embed code are all made in your browser, and nothing is uploaded. Every one carries your map's contents, so treat it like the map itself. File names use your map's main topic, and PDF and HTML files note the date you made them.
- The PDF's "View online link" option (it's on unless you switch it off) adds a clickable "View online" link to each page footer. You won't see the address printed, but the link holds the whole map, so anyone with the PDF file can open it.
- Embed code (for showing your map on another website) uses the full map link, so anyone who can see that page can read the map, including the website's owner and any tools it runs. The code also shows your map's main topic in plain text. Each visitor to that page loads Mind Map Town from Cloudflare, which sees the usual visit basics. The embed tells browsers not to share which page it's on, so we aren't told where it lives.
If you use an agent
You can ask an AI agent to make a map for you (see Give it to your agent). Your agent writes the map link on its own side and gives it to you, and nothing about it passes through Mind Map Town. What you tell your agent, including any map link you paste into it, is handled by your agent's provider under its own terms and privacy policy.
Some agents read our public guide or skill file from mindmap.town. That's an ordinary request for a public file, like loading a page, so our host sees the usual visit basics. It carries nothing about your maps.
If you add the skill with the npx skills installer, that tool (made by Vercel, not us) reports anonymous install counts to Vercel, like which skill and which agents. It never sends anything about your maps, and putting DISABLE_TELEMETRY=1 in front of the command turns it off.
In chat apps
Mind Map Town also works inside chat apps such as ChatGPT and Claude, through a small connector at mindmap.town/mcp. When you ask the chat app for a map, its AI writes the map and sends it to the connector. The connector checks that the map is well formed and answers with a short summary and the map's link. The chat app then shows the map with our viewer, and its Open in Mind Map Town button opens the link in your browser.
This is the one place a map reaches us, and only the maps a chat app sends. The connector keeps nothing: no maps, no logs of what it receives, and no database or storage of any kind. Each request is answered and forgotten.
The connector has no accounts and doesn't know who you are. It gets only what the chat app sends with each request: the map its AI wrote (which can include things from your conversation) and sometimes small details, like your language, a rough location, or an anonymous ID, which it ignores. It never gets the conversation itself. Like any visit, our host sees the basics of each request, which come from the chat app's servers rather than your device.
The viewer runs inside the chat app and connects to nothing. It loads only our fonts, from mindmap.town, which our host sees like any visit, with nothing about your map. What you tell the chat app, including the maps its AI writes, is handled by the chat app's provider under its own terms and privacy policy.
Links to other sites
Links in a map, and the link to Justin's X profile, lead to other sites with their own privacy policies. Mind Map Town tells your browser to keep quiet about where you came from, so those sites aren't even told you were on Mind Map Town. (Browsers never pass along the part after the # anyway.)
Kids
We don't ask anyone for personal information, kids included. The only visit details involved are the basics our host handles, described above. If a young mapmaker is in town, help them learn that sharing a link shares the whole map.
Changes and saying hello
If this policy changes, we'll post the new version here and update the date at the top.
Privacy laws where you live may give you rights over information about you. We don't hold your maps or any account data, but you're always welcome to ask.
Questions, ideas, or a bug to report? Email hello@mindmap.town, or say hi to Justin on X at @youens. Whoever you write to sees what you send and the address or profile you send it from, and on X, X's own privacy policy applies. (Asking about a specific map? Its link is the whole map, so sending it, even in a private message, shares the map.)