Terms of Use & License

1. Acceptance of these terms

These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) are an agreement between you and Clearware, LLC(“we,” “us”) covering your use of the PhotoTray application and this website. By installing, launching, or using PhotoTray, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not install or use the app.

2. License to use the app

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use PhotoTray on devices you own or control. You may not resell, rent, or redistribute the app, and you may not attempt to reverse engineer, tamper with, or circumvent its safeguards except to the extent the law expressly permits.

3. The idle-bandwidth exchange (a condition of use)

PhotoTrayis provided free of charge, and it is funded by sharing a slice of your device's idle, unused internet bandwidth — when it can— through a vetted partner. This exchange is what pays for development instead of a subscription, a per-file charge, or advertising, and it is a condition of using the free app.

• Participation is disclosed to you at install time, before anything runs.
• Only one Clearware app shares on a device at a time. The partner network allows a single connected client per machine. If you have another Clearware application installed, only one of them shares at any moment; the other keeps trying and takes over once the slot frees up. On a device where a sibling app holds the slot, PhotoTraymay share nothing for as long as that lasts. We say “when it can” because of this limit, not as a hedge — PhotoTray does not itself throttle, schedule or withhold sharing.
• Sharing runs in the background and continues after you close the app, for as long as you are signed in to Windows, until you turn it off or uninstall. It runs only for the signed-in user.
• The bandwidth sharing carries the partner's ordinary web traffic. It does not read, transmit, or otherwise access the photos and videos you convert, edit or organise with the app, the folders it watches, your browsing history, your credentials, or your screen.
• To operate the network, the partner processes a limited set of device data — your IP address during active sessions, an anonymous device identifier, city-level location, device specifications, and bandwidth statistics — as an independent data controller under its own privacy policy.
• You may turn sharing off at any time from the app's Settings, its tray menu, or the partner's own tray icon. The app's utilities do not run while sharing is off, though work already in progress is allowed to finish. Uninstalling ends participation completely and removes the partner agent (section 7).
• There is no automatic pausing on metered connections, no automatic back-off while you are using the network, and no bandwidth cap.

Full details are on How it's funded, and privacy details are in our Privacy Policy.

4. Your responsibilities

You are solely responsible for how you use PhotoTray and for the photos, videos and other files you convert, edit, organise or share with it. In particular:

• You must have the right to process any images or video you use the app with, and you must comply with all applicable laws, including copyright.
• You choose which folders PhotoTray watches and what its rules do to the files that arrive in them, including whether originals are kept, moved or replaced. You are responsible for those choices and for keeping your own backups.
• You must not use the app to infringe intellectual property, invade privacy, or for any unlawful purpose. Removing metadata from an image does not change who owns it.

5. No warranty

PhotoTrayis provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the app will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that every conversion, upscale, duplicate scan or folder rule will succeed or produce the result you expected. In particular, reading HEIC requires a Microsoft codec that may not be present on your device, and metadata cannot be removed from a HEIC file in place — both are described on this site and in the app.

6. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Clearware, LLC will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for any loss of data, arising out of or related to your use of PhotoTray. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you.

7. Uninstalling and ending these terms

You may stop using PhotoTray at any time. Uninstalling the app is the way to opt out of the idle-bandwidth exchange and end these Terms — there are no dark patterns and nothing to cancel. Once the app is removed, bandwidth sharing stops. We may also suspend or end your license if you materially breach these Terms.

8. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms as the product evolves. When we make material changes, we will revise the “last updated” date above and, where appropriate, notify you in the app or on this site. Continuing to use PhotoTray after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

9. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email info@clearware.co. PhotoTray is operated by Clearware, LLC.