Are My Files Safe? How HuntPDF Uploads, Processes and Deletes Them
Before you upload a payslip, a passport scan or a contract to any website, it is fair to ask where the file goes and how long it stays there. This page answers that for HuntPDF in plain terms: what happens at each step, when each copy is deleted, and the one case, AI tools, where part of your document is sent to another company.
No account, no personal details
You do not sign up to use HuntPDF. No tool asks for your name, email address or phone number before it works, so there is no profile that links your files to you. The site uses analytics and shows ads like most free websites; these record page visits, not the contents of your files.
Step 1: the upload
When you add a file, it is sent from your browser to HuntPDF's server over HTTPS, the same encrypted connection used by online banking, so it cannot be read on the way by someone on the same Wi-Fi. Each file can be up to 260 MB. If you pick a file from Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, HuntPDF only fetches the file you chose, at the moment you choose it.
Step 2: processing on the server
Most tools, such as compressing, converting and OCR, run on HuntPDF's own server with standard document software. Your file is processed to produce the result you asked for, and nothing else is done with it: it is not added to a library, shared or sold.
The copy you uploaded is deleted as soon as your result has been made. A cleanup job also runs in the background and removes any leftover upload older than 15 minutes, in case a job was interrupted.
Step 3: your result, and when it is deleted
The finished file waits on the server only so you can download it. It is deleted at the first of these moments: as soon as you close or leave the result page; about three minutes after your download finishes, if you leave the page open; or 15 minutes after it was made, if you never download it.
There is one exception you choose yourself. If you use Share to create a link or send the file by email, that file is kept for 60 minutes so the other person has time to open it, and is then deleted.
AI tools: what is sent to another company
Tools such as Chat with PDF, AI Summarizer, AI Translator and the bank statement and contract analysers need a large language model. For these, the text of your document is extracted on HuntPDF's server and sent to an outside AI provider, such as Google Gemini or OpenAI, which writes the answer.
Before the text leaves the server, HuntPDF replaces the identifiers that do the most damage if they leak with placeholders: payment card numbers, US Social Security numbers, IBANs, long bank account numbers, and API keys or secrets. For the bank statement tools, email addresses and phone numbers are replaced too. Your answer is shown with the real values put back.
What the AI provider does with the text it receives is governed by that provider's own terms, which HuntPDF does not control. If a document must not reach any third party, do not use an AI tool on it; every non-AI tool keeps the work on HuntPDF's server.
What no website can promise
No online service is perfectly secure, and HuntPDF does not claim to be. What it does is keep each file for minutes, not days, ask for nothing that identifies you, and tell you plainly when text goes to an AI provider.
For very sensitive documents you can lower the risk further. Black out what the reader does not need with Redact PDF before you share the file. Remove hidden author and software details with Remove PDF Metadata. Add a password with Protect PDF and send the password by a different channel, such as a text message.
In short
Encrypted upload, processing only for your request, the upload deleted when the result is ready, the result deleted when you leave, three minutes after download, or within 15 minutes, share links kept for 60 minutes, and AI tools the only case where text goes to another company, with card and bank numbers removed first.