Preferences

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Two preferences are saved to your account: the language you read the service in, and whether it emails you when one of your secrets is read. Everything else you can change is remembered by the browser you changed it in, or is not a setting at all. This page lists all three groups, including the things that turn out not to be settings.

Saved to your account

Setting	Where it is	What it changes
Language	Settings → Profile → Preferences	The language of the interface, and of the security notices the service emails you
Secret Reveal Notifications	Settings → Profile → Notifications	Whether you are emailed when someone reads one of your secrets

That is the whole list of preferences. Both follow the account rather than the device: sign in from another browser or another computer and both are already applied. Your email address, your password and second factor, and your connected identities are also held on your account, but they are credentials rather than preferences and are covered under Settings that live somewhere else.

Language

Only the languages the service has actually been translated into are offered, and one it does not have is refused rather than quietly accepted.

Signed in, your choice is written to your account and is what the service uses from then on, everywhere. Signed out, the choice belongs to that browser session and is not attached to any account, so it lasts as long as the session does.

Your language also sets the language of the security notices the service sends you — sign-in alerts, the notice that your password changed, two-factor changes, and the reveal notification below. Emails triggered by a form you have just submitted go out in the language you were using when you submitted it instead: confirming an email-address change, and the password-reset email you asked for, both follow the request rather than the account. An account with no language chosen gets the service’s default.

It does not set the language of the page your recipient opens. Their page picks its own: a language they chose explicitly, then the brand language of the custom domain the link was shared from, then their browser’s language, then the default. Choosing German for yourself does not send anyone a German page. If you use the create form’s optional recipient field, though, the email carrying that link is written in the language you are reading the service in, not theirs.

Translations are contributed by volunteers, and coverage varies by language — see Translations.

Secret reveal notifications

One switch — “Receive an email when someone views your secret” — and it is off unless you turn it on.

When it is on, the notification:

covers the secrets you create while signed in — a secret created signed out has no account attached and can never notify anyone;
goes to the email address on your account, and nowhere else; there is no separate notification address;
fires when someone reveals the secret through the site, which is what a recipient opening your link does. It does not fire when the link is merely fetched, so a mail scanner or a chat preview does not trigger one. A reveal performed through the older v1 or v2 API endpoints does not notify you;
contains the time of the read and the secret’s short identifier, and nothing else — it does not name the reader, and it does not carry the content, which cannot be retrieved.

If the email fails to send, the read still happened and the secret is still gone. Sending the notification is not part of the reveal and cannot reverse it.

The switch controls that one email and nothing else. There is no digest or summary, no per-secret version of it, no notification when a secret is burned, and no reveal notification is ever sent to the recipient. Emailing the link itself to someone is a separate, per-secret choice on the create form, not a notification setting.

The email is deliberately thin. The read itself is recorded, though: each access is written to the secret’s receipt along with a partial IP address and a partial browser identifier, and a reader who was signed in is recorded by account. To find out what happened to a particular secret, open its receipt or your recent secrets.

Privacy settings

The Privacy panel has nothing on it to change. It states that the service runs no analytics and no tracking — “This isn’t a setting because there’s nothing to turn on or off” — and shows that as a switch which is permanently on and cannot be moved. So there is no opt-out here to find, because there is no control here at all. For the stance behind that, see Our principles.

Remembered by your browser, not your account

These are real choices that stick, but they stick to the browser you made them in. A new browser, a different computer, or a cleared browser starts from the defaults again.

Choice	What it does	Scope
Appearance (light or dark)	Sets the theme. Until you choose, it follows your device’s own light/dark setting	The browser you set it in. It is not saved to your account, so set it again on each one
The expiry you last picked	Pre-selects that expiry on the create form in your account next time. If it is no longer one of the offered options, the form falls back to the service’s default. The homepage create form does not use it	The browser you set it in
Stay on page	Keeps you on the create form after a secret is made, so you can make another without navigating. When you generate a password from the form in your account, the app takes you to the receipt anyway, because that is the only place a generated password is shown	The browser you set it in
The domain you are creating under	Chooses which of your organization’s domains a new secret is shared from	The signed-in session

What is not settable

These come up often. None of them exists.

People look for	What is true instead
A default expiry for my account	The expiry choices, and which one is preselected, come from the service. Your account has no expiry setting — only the per-browser memory above
A default passphrase, or “always require a passphrase on my secrets”	A passphrase is decided per secret, as you create it. A requirement can be imposed by the service, or on links shared from a custom domain by that domain’s settings — never by your account
How long my sign-in lasts, or a limit on simultaneous sign-ins	Both windows are fixed and neither is per-account; nothing caps how many sessions are open. See Sessions and connected identities
A display name, username or profile picture	An account has none. It is identified by its email address
A setting to move my account to another region	A region is a separate service, not a preference. See Changing your region
Turning analytics off	See Privacy settings above

Settings that live somewhere else

Several things people file under “preferences” are account changes with consequences of their own, and each has its own page:

Changing your email address — confirmed by email, and it signs out every session.
Signing in and Two-factor authentication and passkeys — how you get in, and the second factor.
Sessions and connected identities — what is signed in right now, and which identity providers are linked.
Closing your account — what closing deletes and what it does not.

Your account’s language and notification switch are yours alone, and changing either affects nobody else. Settings that apply to everybody sharing a custom domain — its branding, the language it serves, whether its links require a passphrase — belong to the domain rather than to any one account, and are covered under Custom domains.

Your dashboard and recent secrets — what the service keeps a record of, and for how long
Sharing secrets — the choices you make per secret, which is where most of the “settings” people look for actually live
Custom domain access and privacy — defaults that apply to a whole domain
Translations — which languages exist, and helping with one
Glossary — passphrase, receipt, reveal, burn

Questions or need support?

We’re here to help.

Email: support@onetimesecret.com
Feedback form: https://onetimesecret.com/feedback