Privacy notice

Hardcoded Value Detector. Last updated 31 August 2026.

The short version

Your workbook never leaves your machine. The add-in makes exactly one kind of network request of its own — checking your licence key — and that request carries no workbook content of any sort. There are no accounts and no analytics.

What the add-in reads

To find hardcoded values it reads the used range of the worksheet being checked: cell values, value types, number formats and formulas. All of it is read into memory in the task pane, analysed there, and discarded when the pane closes. The whole-workbook scan does the same for each visible sheet; hidden sheets are skipped.

None of it is transmitted anywhere.

What it writes

Nothing, until you apply a fix. A fix changes only the cells described in the finding you acted on, and takes a restore point first so it can be reversed. Restore points are held in the workbook's own settings, inside the workbook file, on your machine.

The exported report is a file your browser saves locally. It quotes your own formulas and cell addresses, so treat it as workbook content — it is never uploaded, and there is nowhere for it to be uploaded to.

What is stored on your device

One entry in browser local storage, holding your licence entitlement and a randomly generated install identifier. The identifier is a random value; it is not derived from you, your machine, or your Microsoft account. Clearing your browser storage, or Office's cache, deletes it — and re-entering your key afterwards does not cost you a licence seat.

The licence server

If you hold a paid licence, the add-in contacts appgarden.co.uk's licence service to activate your key and, periodically, to confirm it is still valid. Those requests carry three things: your licence key, the random install identifier described above, and an instance identifier the server issued when you activated. That is the whole payload. No cell, formula, sheet name, file name or scan result is ever sent, and the server has no way to ask for any.

The server stores, against your key: which plan it is on, how many seats it has, whether the subscription is live, and the install identifiers currently holding a seat. It is run on Cloudflare Workers.

On a free installation none of this happens at all — there is no key, so there is nothing to check and no request is made.

Payment

Purchases are handled by Paddle, which is the merchant of record and takes the payment. Your card details are Paddle's to handle and are never seen by this add-in or by the licence server. Paddle's own privacy terms govern what it collects, including the billing details and tax location it needs to invoice you.

What passes back to us from Paddle is the subscription: which plan, how many seats, and whether it is still active. That is what your key is minted from.

Third parties

No analytics provider, no error-reporting service, no advertising. The add-in's files are served from appgarden.co.uk, which is hosted on Cloudflare. Cloudflare records ordinary web access logs — IP address, time, file requested — as any web server does, and applies its standard bot protection, which adds a small script of its own to each page it serves. That script is Cloudflare's, not ours.

It cannot see your workbook. Nothing running in the pane has access to Excel except the add-in itself.

Microsoft delivers the add-in and hosts Office itself, and its own privacy terms apply to that. Nothing here changes them.

Your rights and contact

The only identifiers held are your licence key and the random install identifiers attached to it, neither of which identifies a person on its own. To have a key and its seats erased, or to ask about any of this, email support@appgarden.co.uk — note that erasing a key ends the licence it represents. For the billing record, Paddle is the controller and its process applies.