What is tracked when I open a shared SlideHub link?

When you open a link created with SlideHub's Send & Track feature, the person who sent you the link can see how you engaged with the files they shared — for example, when you opened it, how long you spent on each slide, and whether you downloaded anything. They cannot see who you are personally: SlideHub does not collect your name, your email address, your exact location, or your IP address.

This article explains what is and isn't recorded, so you can decide what to share before you click.

Example: a sales rep sends you a proposal as a SlideHub link. After you open it, they can see that someone spent five minutes on the pricing page, skimmed the timeline, and downloaded the PDF — useful for their follow-up. They can't see that it was you specifically, what city you were in, or what browser you were using.

How do I know if a link is being tracked?

Tracking on a shared link is optional. The sender turns it on or off when they create the link. When it is on, a notice is shown at the bottom of every page of the shared link:

This content is tracked to help [Sender's Company] improve its services.

If you do not see that notice, the link is not being tracked and no activity is being recorded on your visit.

What can the sender see about my visit?

When tracking is enabled, the sender can see the following in their SlideHub activity view:

• When you opened the link — the date and time the link was first opened, and when the session ended.
• How long you spent in total — the duration of your viewing session.
• The general type of device you used — bucketed as desktop, mobile, or tablet. The sender does not see your specific device, browser, or operating system.
• Which slides or pages you looked at — and how many seconds you spent on each one. This is how the sender knows which content held your attention.
• How many times you clicked on each slide — for example, advancing to the next slide or interacting with content.
• Whether you downloaded any of the files — and which file you downloaded, if downloads were allowed for the link.

If you open the same link more than once on the same day from the same connection, those visits are grouped into a single session so the sender does not see duplicate views.

What can the sender not see?

Send & Track is designed to measure engagement with the content, not to identify you. The sender does not see:

• Your name — unless they already know it from how they shared the link with you. SlideHub does not ask you to identify yourself before viewing.
• Your email address — there is no email gate, sign-in, or form to fill in.
• Your IP address — SlideHub never stores your raw IP address. It is converted into a one-way fingerprint (a cryptographic hash) that is used only to recognise that two visits on the same day came from the same connection. The hash cannot be reversed back into an IP.
• Your location — SlideHub does not perform any geographic lookup on your IP address. Your city and country are not recorded.
• Your browser, operating system, or specific device — only the broad category (desktop, mobile, or tablet).
• Anything you typed, copied, or did outside the shared link — SlideHub only measures activity inside the files the sender attached. It cannot see other browser tabs, your clipboard, or anything on the rest of your computer.
• Whether you tried a password and got it wrong — password attempts on protected links are not logged.

How does SlideHub protect my information?

A few design choices keep your visit private:

• IP addresses are hashed, not stored. SlideHub combines your IP address with a unique value for the link and a secret key, then applies a one-way hash. Only the result of that hash is stored. The original IP is never written to the database, and the hash cannot be turned back into an IP — not even by SlideHub.
• No personal identifiers are collected. Because there is no sign-in, email field, or contact form on the shared link, SlideHub does not have a name, email, or phone number to attach to your visit.
• The tracking notice is always shown when tracking is on. You will see the disclosure at the bottom of every page before you decide what to look at.

What happens if the sender turned tracking off?

If the sender disabled tracking — or if their company's policy requires tracking to be off — then opening the link records nothing at all. No session is created, no slide-by-slide engagement is measured, and no download events are logged. The disclosure banner is not shown either, because there is nothing to disclose.

Some companies use SlideHub in mandatory off mode for compliance reasons, in which case every link from that company is non-tracking by default.

How long is my activity kept?

Engagement data is kept for as long as the sender keeps the link in their SlideHub account. If the sender deletes the link, the associated activity is deleted with it. If you'd like the sender to remove a specific visit, contact them directly — they control the link and the records attached to it.

Who at the sender's company can see this activity?

By default, the person who created the link can always see its activity. Depending on how their company has configured Send & Track, other people at the company may also have access:

• The creator of the link.
• Any colleagues the creator explicitly added to the link.
• Account Owners, Admins, and Editors at the sender's company — but only if their company has set link statistics to Public. If the setting is Private, only the creator and named colleagues can see the activity.

SlideHub itself does not look at individual viewing activity. Aggregated, non-identifying usage data may be used to keep the service running and improve it.

Is it safe to click the link?

Yes. Opening a SlideHub shared link is no different, from a privacy perspective, than opening a tracked email or a document in most modern cloud tools. The sender will know the link was opened and how engaged the viewer was, but they will not learn personal information about you that they did not already have.

If you'd prefer to view the content without sending engagement signals back to the sender, you can ask them whether the link has tracking enabled, or ask them for an untracked copy of the file.

If you have questions about a specific shared link you received, or about how your activity is being used, get in touch with our Customer Success Team.

For senders who want to learn how to create and configure these links, see How does Send & Track work?

Updated on: 05/15/2026