Privacy policy — MailContext

Last updated: 14 August 2026 Product: MailContext (source)

MailContext is a Chrome extension that copies a Gmail message or thread as lean Markdown onto your clipboard. It is local-first: there is no MailContext account, backend, analytics, or advertising.

Limited Use

MailContext complies with the Chrome Web Store Limited Use requirements. Email content and related identifiers accessed to provide Copy are used only for that user-facing feature. They are not sold, not used for advertising, and not transferred to MailContext servers (there are none).

What MailContext accesses

On mail.google.com only, while the extension’s content script is loaded (when you open or navigate Gmail in that tab), MailContext may:

observe the page enough to inject Copy message / Copy thread into Gmail More menus and to detect whether a conversation is open;
watch same-origin Gmail network/resource URLs in the page (and may read a short-lived session key ik from them) so Show original header enrichment can work when you later copy;
store that ik value in chrome.storage.session.

When you invoke Copy message or Copy thread, it additionally:

reads identity attributes for the open conversation / target message;
fetches Gmail print view (view=pt) and, when applicable, Show original (view=om) using your existing Gmail session;
writes the resulting Markdown to the clipboard.

That processing involves personal communications, email addresses, and session/authentication material (ik). It does not read other websites. It does not copy Bcc.

What is transmitted

Email content is not sent to MailContext servers — there are none. Network requests are same-origin Gmail fetches required for extraction. Pasting the clipboard into another app (AI assistant, docs, chat) is your action and outside this policy.

What is retained

Clipboard history may be kept by the operating system or third-party clipboard managers. MailContext does not persist message bodies. The ik cache lives in session storage and is not a copy of your mail.

Permissions

Permission	Why
`https://mail.google.com/*`	Extract the open conversation via Gmail’s own views
`clipboardWrite`	Place Markdown on the clipboard
`offscreen`	Parse print HTML and write the clipboard from an extension page
`storage`	Cache the Gmail `ik` session key

Chrome Web Store disclosures

When completing the store privacy questionnaire, declare processing that matches this policy—at minimum personal communications / email content, identifiers such as email addresses, and authentication or session information for ik—even though processing stays on-device.

Changes

If data handling changes, this policy will be updated and (for Chrome Web Store users) disclosed as required by store policy.

Contact

Open an issue on github.com/jlorenzetti/mailcontext, or use the support URL listed on the Chrome Web Store item. The public policy is at mailcontext.com/privacy.