Short Sauce — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 2026-09-16
Short Sauce is a browser extension that tells you what a YouTube Short is from.
What is sent to the Short Sauce API
When you ask for the sauce of a Short (by clicking the button, or automatically if you enable that setting), the extension sends:
- the Short's video ID
- the Short's public title, description, channel name and top comments (with like counts), read from YouTube in your browser
- the Short's captions (auto-generated subtitles), if YouTube provides them
- up to three small (384 px) video frames — optional, can be turned off in Settings
- your browser language and timezone, used only to pick which Amazon store links open in (you can change it in the panel)
- a random install ID (a UUID generated on first run, not tied to any account), used to enforce a daily free-use limit
- the extension version
If the extension could not read those, the API fetches the same public title, description and comments from the YouTube Data API using the video ID.
What is stored
- Identification results are cached on the server per video ID (not per user) so the same Short is not analysed twice.
- Frames are processed in memory to identify the clip and are not stored.
- Request logs (video ID, install ID, timings, token counts, errors) are kept for up to 30 days for debugging and cost control.
- "Wrong sauce" feedback and outbound-link clicks are counted per video ID and store. No personal data is attached.
What is not collected
No Google/YouTube account data, no browsing history outside youtube.com/shorts/*, no cookies, no email, no names.
Third parties
Captions and frames are sent to an AI model provider (Google Gemini or OpenAI) to perform the identification, under their API terms. Nothing is used for advertising.
Links to other sites
Product and game results link to your local Amazon store; other results link to Google or YouTube Music. These are plain links — they carry no affiliate or tracking tags, and Short Sauce earns nothing from them. If that changes, this policy and the extension will say so.