Smart Rewind privacy policy

Effective date: October 14, 2026

Last updated: October 14, 2026

Smart Rewind has one purpose: automatically manage available native captions on supported standard YouTube videos when you rewind or, if you choose, while the video is muted. It restores your prior caption state once the relevant conditions end.

Data accessed and purpose

On YouTube pages, Smart Rewind reads the current page URL to detect navigation and supported watch videos. On eligible watch pages, it briefly reads the watch video identifier, media source address, playback position and duration, seek events, player eligibility, advertisement state, video mute and player volume state, and whether YouTube's native caption control is available and on or off. It observes progress-bar pointer actions, YouTube seek shortcut keys, manual caption-toggle input, and video volume changes to identify a rewind, respond to mute, or respect your caption choice. The video identifier and media source address are used only to detect a change to another video or media source and reset the session. Smart Rewind cannot read your computer's system volume. It does not read caption text, transcripts, comments, account information, titles, channels, typed text, or other page metadata.

Processing and retention

Playback, route, source, caption, mute, volume, and seek-interaction state are processed locally in memory. They are discarded when the video or route changes, the content script stops, or the tab closes. Smart Rewind does not store video URLs or IDs, media URLs, titles, channels, playback timestamps, seek or input history, caption text, or viewing history.

The extension stores one versioned preferences object in Chrome's local extension storage: whether Smart Rewind is enabled, the selected minimum rewind of 1, 3, 5, or 10 seconds, whether captions while muted are enabled, and the schema version. Those preferences remain on this device until extension storage is cleared or the extension is uninstalled. They are not synced by the extension..

Sharing and network activity

Smart Rewind does not transmit data to its developer, sell or share user data, use it for advertising or profiling, or provide it for human review. It has no analytics, telemetry, crash reporting, remote configuration, backend, or extension-initiated network requests. It does not load remote scripts, fonts, images, or other runtime assets.

Smart Rewind operates YouTube's native caption control. YouTube may retrieve captions through its own service when that control is used. YouTube's network activity and privacy practices are governed by YouTube and Google.

Your choices

You can disable Smart Rewind, change its rewind threshold, or turn the optional captions-while-muted feature on or off in the popup. To remove stored preferences, clear this extension's local storage in Chrome or uninstall the extension. Disabling Smart Rewind stops further automatic caption changes and attempts to restore a temporary caption state that it changed.

Chrome Web Store Limited Use

Smart Rewind's use of data complies with the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Its use of website content, browsing activity, seek interactions, and video mute state is limited to its visible automatic-caption features. It does not use that data for unrelated purposes, targeted advertising, creditworthiness, or sale. Access is limited to YouTube and a small local preferences object.