Privacy policy

Last updated 31 October 2026

Charcoal turns images into ASCII art inside your browser. Your images stay on your device.

What we collect

Nothing. Charcoal has no accounts, no login, no cookies, no analytics and no advertising.

Your images

• Images are processed by code running in your browser. They are never sent to us or to anyone else.
• Charcoal does not save your image, your settings or your drawing. Closing the tab clears them.
• Files are created only when you press a download or copy button, and go where your browser puts them.

Background removal

If you turn this on, your browser downloads a 176 MB model file once from Hugging Face, which may log your IP address like any website. The model then runs on your device. Your image is not sent anywhere. Your browser may keep the model in its normal cache.

Hosting

The company hosting this site may keep standard server logs, such as IP addresses and page requests, to run and protect the service. We do not use those logs to identify you.

Children

Charcoal collects no personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will appear on this page with a new date.

Contact

Questions can be sent through GitHub.