If you received a link

What LinkDrop is

LinkDrop lets people share a PDF as a link and see how it was read. Someone sent you one of those links. LinkDrop did not choose you or write to you; the person who sent the link did.

The page tells you who shared it. The top of every page you land on shows the sender's workspace name, or the person's own name if their workspace has none. That includes the password screen.

Links look like lnkdrp.com/s/... for one document and lnkdrp.com/p/... for a project, which holds several documents.

Do I need an account?

No. The link opens in your browser without signing up or signing in.

If you already have a LinkDrop account and are signed in when you open a link, the sender's workspace records the visit under your account instead of as an anonymous reader.

Why it asks for a password

The sender chose to protect this link with a password. The password screen shows who shared it and nothing about the document, not even its title.

• Type the password and click Unlock. That browser stays unlocked for 14 days.
• If the sender changes the password, you are asked again, even within those 14 days.
• After too many wrong attempts you have to wait a few minutes before trying again.
• If you do not have the password, ask the person who sent you the link. They can look it up or set a new one. LinkDrop does not give out share passwords.

Reading the document

• The document opens in the LinkDrop viewer. You can step through single pages, scroll through all pages, or see a grid of page thumbnails, and zoom in and out.
• Summary shows a short summary and key points of the document, written automatically by LinkDrop's AI, not by the sender.
• History appears only if the sender lets you browse earlier versions of the document.
• If the viewer cannot load, it may fall back to a Simplified view that uses your browser's own PDF viewer. Try the full viewer switches back.

"Introduce yourself"

Introduce yourself in the toolbar lets you tell the sender who you are. On a phone it is in the menu with the other viewer controls. On a project link it is in the page header. It is optional: click Stay anonymous or just close it and keep reading.

If you do:

• You give an email address, and a name if you want, and click Save. The dialog shows exactly what the sender will see.
• The sender sees your name or email on your visit, with the pages you read and how long you spent on them, from then on. It goes to the sender and their team only and is never shown on the page.
• So they know who is reading, the sender's workspace may get a short reader profile of you: public professional details like your role and company, plus your general location. See Reader profiles below.
• You become one of the sender's contacts. See Contacts.
• LinkDrop emails you a Confirm my email link, so the sender knows the address is really yours. The link opens a page showing the name and address you gave; press Yes, this is me to confirm (opening the link alone confirms nothing, so a mail scanner cannot confirm for you). Confirming is optional. The document stays open either way, and the confirmation link stops working after a day. Until you confirm, the sender is told the address is unconfirmed.
• The sender may be emailed that you introduced yourself.
• The toolbar then shows Viewing as with your name. Click it to change what you gave, or Clear to stop sending it from that browser. Clearing does not take back what the sender already received, and it does not delete a reader profile; see below for how to ask for that.

Telling one sender who you are does not tell anyone else. What you give on one sender's link is not sent to a different sender's links.

Instead of typing, you can Sign in with Google to a free LinkDrop account. The visit is then recorded under that account. Being signed in does not on its own lead to a reader profile; only typing your name and email does.

Reader profiles

If you introduce yourself by typing your name and email and then confirm that email with the link we send you, the workspace that shared the link may have LinkDrop put together a short profile of you, so they know who is reading and can follow up with what is relevant to you. It is on by default for workspaces, and they can turn it off. Research runs after you confirm your email; until then, nothing is looked up about you automatically. Readers who stay anonymous are never profiled.

• What it holds: public professional details found on the open web, such as your role, your company and your professional background (and, if the workspace uses the Advanced level, your public career history and recent public news about you from the last 12 months), with links to where each came from; your general location (a city, region and country, approximate, from your connection or from a work location such as your company's office that a public page states; never where you live); how you are likely to relate to the documents you opened; and your history with that workspace (your visits and the documents you opened, from LinkDrop's own records).
• How it is made: after you confirm your email (a few minutes after you introduce yourself at the earliest), OpenAI searches the public web for you and writes the profile. It receives your name and your email address's domain, never the full address, which is never searched for; your approximate location (which also localises the search); your browser's language and time zone; and the titles and summaries of the documents you opened. Your IP address, your browser type, the site you came from and the documents' text are never sent. The location comes from the approximate location LinkDrop's host derives from your connection, your browser's language and the time zone the share page reports.
• What it never does: it never signs in to a site, never uses LinkedIn, other sites behind a login or people-search sites as a source, and never keeps health, religion, politics, family or other sensitive details.
• Who sees it: only the workspace whose link you opened. It is never shown on the page, never shared with another workspace, and LinkDrop's own staff cannot see it. It can be wrong; the sender is told so.
• If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, you are not profiled.
• To have a profile deleted, or to ask not to be profiled, email support@lnkdrp.com from the address you gave. LinkDrop deletes it without asking the sender first, and the request also covers other spellings of your address (a +tag, dots in a Gmail address) and your name at the same company domain.

What the sender can see

When you open a link, LinkDrop records that you opened it, which pages you viewed, how long you spent on each page, how many times you returned to a page, and whether you downloaded the PDF. Time only counts while the tab is in front, and the clock stops after five minutes without scrolling, clicking, tapping or typing.

The sender sees the same on every plan: each reader's visits, page by page and in order, and who the reader was: the name or email you gave, or your LinkDrop account if you were signed in. If you gave neither, you appear as an anonymous viewer, with what you read. If you are one of their contacts, they also see your reading history across their documents, and, if you introduced yourself, your reader profile (above).

The sender may also get an email when you open the link, and a short written account of your visit, called a visit brief, a few minutes after you stop reading. It says which pages you came back to, spent time on, skimmed and skipped. To write it, LinkDrop sends the record of your visit and the text of the pages that held you longest or that you came back to to its AI provider, with your name and email when the sender sees them. Nothing else you typed is sent. Briefs can also be posted to the sender's Slack. Briefs and reader profiles are never shown to you.

What is not tracked or not shown:

• Your IP address is kept for security and abuse prevention. It is never shown to the sender.
• Nothing you type into the viewer is recorded; the document is read-only.
• LinkDrop does not fingerprint devices and runs no advertising trackers. It does not store your browser's user-agent string, except once when you introduce yourself: that introduction record (IP address, browser type and language, the site you came from) is deleted after 90 days.
• To tell repeat visits apart, a random identifier is stored in your browser. It is not linked across different senders' documents. Clearing your browser's storage removes it.

More detail is in Privacy and security and in section 5 of the Privacy Policy, which is written for people who open a share link.

Why I can't download it

The sender decides whether each link allows downloads.

• If downloads are allowed, Download PDF saves the file.
• If they are not, Download PDF opens Request download. Enter your email and click Request. You get an email saying the request was sent, and the sender gets an email asking them to approve or deny it.
• If they approve, you are emailed a link. Open it and Sign in with Google with the same address you entered, then choose Download PDF or Save to my LinkDrop account.
• A Gmail address with a +tag or dots counts as the same address: if you asked as you+decks@gmail.com, signing in as you@gmail.com works. The same goes for a +tag on a work address that signs in with Google.
• The download is the deck as it was when they approved, even if they upload a new version later.
• The emailed link works for a limited time (the email and the page say until when). After that it stops working and the file is removed; ask again from the link if you still need it. A copy you saved to your LinkDrop account stays yours.
• If they deny it, you get an email saying so. You can still read the document through the link you had.
• The approved link only works while the share link itself still works. If the link has a password, unlock it in the same browser first.
• Asking to download adds you to the sender's contacts with the address you entered.

When a link does not open

• This link isn't available: the sender turned the link off, it passed its expiry date, the document was archived or deleted, or the address is mistyped. LinkDrop shows the same page for all of these and cannot tell you which. Check the address, then ask the sender for a new link.
• This link has expired: the sender set an expiry date on the link and it has passed. Ask them for a new one.
• This document is still preparing a PDF viewer: the file is not ready to show yet. A preview image may be shown below it. Reload the page a little later.
• This document couldn't be displayed: something went wrong while loading. Click Try again. If it keeps happening, contact LinkDrop and include the Reference code shown on the page.

A That link has expired page after clicking Confirm my email is different: confirmation links last a day. Your introduction was already recorded and the sender can see it; it is simply marked as unconfirmed.

Being removed from a sender's contacts

Your name and email belong to the sender's workspace once you give them. Ask the person who sent you the link to remove you. They can ask LinkDrop to remove the contact. See Contacts.

To exercise your privacy rights with LinkDrop directly, email hi@lnkdrp.com. Because the information belongs to the sender's workspace, LinkDrop may need to confirm the request with them. See the Privacy Policy.

Browsers and devices

The viewer runs in your web browser on a computer, tablet or phone. There is nothing to install. On a phone, Summary and Download PDF stay in the toolbar and the other controls are in a menu.

Contacting LinkDrop

• Questions about the document itself, the password, or access go to the person who sent it. LinkDrop cannot answer for them.
• If a link or the viewer is broken, go to lnkdrp.com/support and click Start a chat, or email support@lnkdrp.com. The chat does not appear on the document page. Include the link and the time it happened.

See Contact support.