Privacy policy
This policy covers Doorbell, our chat app for Shopify stores, and this website. It says exactly what we store, why, for how long, and how to have it deleted.
Last updated: 1 September 2026
Who we are
Crowmill, a one-person software studio. For anything in this policy, including access and deletion requests, write to hello@crowmill.com.
What Doorbell stores
Doorbell is a chat widget a merchant puts on their storefront. Two kinds of data pass through it.
From a visitor who starts a chat
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Name and email address | The visitor types them in the widget so the store can answer. Without an address an answer cannot reach anyone who leaves the site. |
| Messages in the conversation | The conversation itself — shown to the visitor in the widget and to the merchant in their Shopify admin. |
| Timestamps and whether an answer was emailed | To order the conversation and to know whether a reply was delivered. |
We do not read customer data from Shopify's APIs. Everything we hold about a visitor is what that visitor typed into the widget themselves.
From the merchant's store
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Store domain and access token | To install the app and show the merchant their own conversations. |
| Notification email address | Only if the merchant enters one, to tell them a message arrived. |
| Current plan | To apply the limits of the free plan. |
What the widget stores in the browser
Doorbell sets no cookies and runs no analytics or tracking. It keeps one value in the browser's local storage: a random token identifying the visitor's own conversation, so the chat is still there after a page reload. Clearing site data removes it.
Who else sees the data
| Service | Role |
|---|---|
| Hetzner Online GmbH (Germany) | Servers and database where conversations are stored. |
| Shopify | The platform the app runs in and which handles all billing. |
| Resend | Delivers reply and notification emails, when email delivery is enabled. |
We do not sell data, do not share it for advertising, and do not use conversations to train models.
How long we keep it
Conversations and contacts are kept while the app is installed, because that is what the merchant's inbox is made of. After that:
- A customer deletion request from Shopify erases that person's contact and their whole conversation history, immediately and permanently.
- When a merchant uninstalls the app, Shopify sends a shop deletion request 48 hours later; we then erase the store's settings, contacts, conversations and messages.
- A request sent to us directly is handled the same way, within 30 days.
Your rights
If you are in the EEA or the UK, you can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to hello@crowmill.com from the address you used in the chat, or ask the store you were writing to — Shopify passes such requests to us automatically, and we answer them the same way.
We process visitor data on behalf of the merchant whose store you contacted: they decide what to do with the conversation, we store and deliver it.
Children
Doorbell is a tool for merchants and is not directed at children.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will also be sent to merchants who have the app installed.