Privacy

What happens to what you type

LaTeX Squiggly has to see your typing to turn \alpha into α. It does that entirely on your own computer. Nothing you type in a web page or another app is stored, logged or sent anywhere, and the apps and the extension make no network requests at all.

The Chrome extension

What it reads. While you type in a text box on a web page, the extension keeps the last 64 characters you typed in memory so it can recognise a LaTeX command when you press space. It is cleared whenever you click, press an arrow key, press Return or move to another field. When it converts something, it reads the few characters just before the cursor to confirm they are what you typed, then replaces them.

Google Docs. The extension also converts in Google Docs documents, unless you switch that off in its settings. Docs does not show the extension your text, so there it keeps a record of the keys you pressed instead, forgets it after four seconds without typing or whenever you click, and replaces a command by pressing Backspace and typing the result. Nothing more is read, and nothing leaves your computer.

What it keeps. Only your settings: whether conversion is on, whether notices are shown, and the list of sites where it stays off. These are saved with Chrome's own storage and, if you have Chrome sync turned on, synced through your Google account like any other extension setting. The developer never receives them.

The renderer. The extension's popup can also turn LaTeX into an image. What you type into the popup for that, or select on a page and send to it with Render selection as image, is kept in Chrome's local storage on your computer, so it is still there when you reopen the popup, until you change it or remove the extension. So is the LaTeX of the last 10 images you copied or saved, as a history, which you can clear from the popup; the images themselves are not kept. It is never synced or sent. The renderer's settings, including any commands you define, are saved and synced like the other settings. The image is made inside the extension and goes only where you copy or save it.

Which sites. It runs on every web page so that it works wherever you type, and it checks each page's address against your list of excluded sites. The address is compared and then dropped. It is never stored or sent.

What it never does. It does not collect, transmit, sell or share any data. It does not use analytics, advertising or tracking, it does not load code from anywhere, and it does not read pages beyond the text field you are typing in.

The macOS and Windows apps

The desktop apps work the same way: the last few keystrokes are held in memory to recognise a command, and cleared on every click, arrow key and app switch. To keep out of Overleaf, the macOS app reads the address of the browser tab in front, compares it with your excluded sites, and drops it. Nothing is written to disk except your settings, and nothing is sent anywhere. The macOS app's renderer, which turns LaTeX into an image, keeps the last LaTeX typed into it and the last 10 equations copied or saved in the app's own settings on your Mac, like the extension's, and sends nothing.

Questions

The source code is public, so every claim here can be checked. Questions and reports are welcome as GitHub issues.

Last updated 24 September 2026.