Privacy policy

Who publishes this

SitesSaver is published by fidodesign.net. Questions about this policy or about data handling go to [email protected].

This policy covers the SitesSaver WordPress plugin, the authentication relay at api.sitessaver.com that the plugin uses for Google Drive, and this website.

The short version

• The plugin runs on your own server. Your backups are yours, and they are never sent to us.
• We operate no account system. There is nothing to sign up for.
• If you connect Google Drive, your Drive files go between your server and Google. Authorisation passes through our relay, described in full below.
• The website asks before it runs Google Analytics, and runs it only if you agree. Nothing else on it tracks you.

Data the plugin handles

SitesSaver is self-hosted software. It runs inside your WordPress installation, on your server, under your control.

What it reads and writes

• Your WordPress database and the files under your installation, in order to create a backup archive.
• Backup archives written to wp-content/sitessaver-backups/ on your server.
• Its own settings, stored as WordPress options in your database: schedule, retention, storage choice, notification address, email branding, and the Google Drive tokens if you connect Drive.

What we never receive

Your backups, your database, your site content, your visitors' data, and your WordPress credentials are never transmitted to fidodesign.net. There is no telemetry, no usage reporting, and no phone-home beyond the two network calls described in the next two sections.

Google Drive

Connecting Google Drive is optional. The plugin works fully without it. If you do connect it, here is exactly what happens, because it involves a service we run.

Why there is a relay

Google OAuth requires a registered application with a client ID and secret. A secret cannot be shipped inside a plugin that anyone can download and read, so the authorisation exchange runs through a relay we operate at api.sitessaver.com, which holds those credentials on behalf of all installations.

What passes through the relay

• During authorisation: the callback URL of your wp-admin settings page and a single-use random state value, so the response can be returned to the right site and verified.
• On refresh: your Google refresh token, exchanged for a short-lived access token.
• On disconnect: your refresh token, so the authorisation can be revoked at Google.

The refresh token is stored in your own WordPress database. The relay exists to perform these exchanges, not to accumulate a record of them.

What does not pass through the relay

Your backup files never touch it. Uploads, downloads, listings, and deletions are made by your server directly to googleapis.com using the access token. Your archives travel between your server and your own Google account.

What the plugin can see in your Drive

The plugin creates and uses a folder named SitesSaver Backups (your site name), and works with ZIP archives in that folder. It does not read, index, or transmit your other Drive files.

Revoking access

Disconnect Google Drive in SitesSaver › Settings, which revokes the authorisation and deletes the stored token. You can also revoke it yourself at any time from your Google account permissions page. Backups already uploaded remain in your Drive, and you delete them there.

Google API Limited Use disclosure

SitesSaver's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

Specifically, data obtained through Google APIs is used only to provide the backup storage feature you asked for. It is not sold, not transferred to third parties except as needed to provide that feature, not used for advertising, and not read by humans except where you have given explicit permission for support purposes, where required by law, or for security investigation.

Update checks

To tell you when a new version exists, the plugin periodically requests the public releases list from api.github.com for its own repository. That is an ordinary HTTPS request to GitHub, subject to GitHub's own policies, and it carries no information about your site beyond what any HTTP request necessarily reveals, such as your server's IP address. The result is cached for six hours.

This website

www.sitessaver.com is a set of static pages.

• Google Analytics is opt-in. On a first visit a banner at the foot of the page asks whether to allow analytics. Until you click "Allow analytics" no Google script is loaded and no cookie is set, so nothing about the visit reaches Google. If you do allow it, Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-8MY7L16L6K) sets the first-party cookies _ga and _ga_8MY7L16L6K and sends a page view plus basic device, browser and referral information to Google, so we can see which pages get read and where visitors arrive from. Google processes that data under its own privacy policy, and may combine it with data from other sites that use its services.
• Your answer is remembered in your browser's local storage, under the key sitessaver.consent.v1. It is never sent anywhere, and it is the only thing this site stores about you. Choose Cookie settings in the footer of any page to change your mind; switching analytics off deletes the two cookies above. With JavaScript disabled there is no tag and no banner at all.
• No other cookies and no other tracking scripts. The site has no accounts, no comments, and no advertising.
• Web fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com. Google may log that request, including your IP address, under its own policy.
• Download links point to GitHub. Following one takes you to github.com, which has its own privacy policy.
• Our hosting provider keeps ordinary server access logs, which include IP addresses and are used for operating and securing the site.

Support contact

If you email [email protected], we keep that correspondence in order to answer you and to understand recurring problems. Please do not send credentials, database dumps, or backup archives by email. If diagnosing a problem needs more than logs and version numbers, we will tell you what is needed and how to send it.

Public issues opened on GitHub are public. Do not put private information in one.

Your rights

Because we hold no accounts and collect no user database, in nearly every case the data you are asking about is in your own hands: on your server, or in your own Google Drive. For anything else, such as email correspondence, write to [email protected] and ask for a copy or for deletion.

Where you are acting as a data controller for your clients' sites, note that SitesSaver is a tool running under your control. Backups contain whatever your site contains, personal data included, so store and dispose of them accordingly.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, the date at the top changes and the substance of the change is described in the plugin changelog rather than applied quietly.