Current version: 2.0.3

PrivateBin is a minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of stored data.

What's New in This Fork (PrivateBin-PQC)

🛡️ Metadata Shield for QR Codes: This fork includes a privacy-preserving QR share feature. Even if a messenger app tries to "preview" your link, it only sees the share gateway—your private encryption keys never leave your device. When you scan a QR code, you're presented with sharing options (WhatsApp, Signal, Viber) before the paste opens, ensuring you maintain complete control over when and how your encrypted content is accessed.

Data is encrypted and decrypted in the browser using 256bit AES in Galois Counter mode.

This is a fork of ZeroBin, originally developed by Sébastien Sauvage. PrivateBin was refactored to allow easier and cleaner extensions and has many additional features.

What PrivateBin provides

• As a server administrator you don't have to worry if your users post content that is considered illegal in your country. You have plausible deniability of any of the pastes content. If requested or enforced, you can delete any paste from your system.

• Pastebin-like system to store text documents, code samples, etc.

• Encryption of data sent to server.

• Possibility to set a password which is required to read the paste. It further protects a paste and prevents people stumbling upon your paste's link from being able to read it without the password.

What it doesn't provide

• As a user you have to trust the server administrator not to inject any malicious code. For security, a PrivateBin installation has to be used over HTTPS! Otherwise you would also have to trust your internet provider, and any jurisdiction the traffic passes through. Additionally the instance should be secured by HSTS. It can use traditional certificate authorities and/or use a DNSSEC protected DANE record.

• The "key" used to encrypt the paste is part of the URL. If you publicly post the URL of a paste that is not password-protected, anyone can read it. Use a password if you want your paste to remain private. In that case, make sure to use a strong password and share it privately and end-to-end-encrypted.

• A server admin can be forced to hand over access logs to the authorities. PrivateBin encrypts your text and the discussion contents, but who accessed a paste (first) might still be disclosed via access logs.

• In case of a server breach your data is secure as it is only stored encrypted on the server. However, the server could be abused or the server admin could be legally forced into sending malicious code to their users, which logs the decryption key and sends it to a server when a user accesses a paste. Therefore, do not access any PrivateBin instance if you think it has been compromised. As long as no user accesses this instance with a previously generated URL, the content can't be decrypted.

Options

Some features are optional and can be enabled or disabled in the configuration file:

• Password protection

• Discussions, anonymous or with nicknames and IP based identicons or vizhashes

• Expiration times, including a "forever" and "burn after reading" option

• Markdown format support for HTML formatted pastes, including preview function

• Syntax highlighting for source code using prettify.js, including 4 prettify themes

• File upload support, image, media and PDF preview (disabled by default, size limit adjustable)

• Templates: By default there are bootstrap5, bootstrap CSS and darkstrap to choose from and it is easy to adapt these to your own websites layout or create your own.

• Translation system and automatic browser language detection (if enabled in browser)

• Language selection (disabled by default, as it uses a session cookie)

• QR code for paste URLs, to easily transfer them over to mobile devices

• Pre-Open Share via QR (disabled by default): When enabled, QR codes point to a share choice page instead of directly opening the paste. This provides:

  • Privacy shield: Messenger apps that try to preview links only see the share gateway, never your encryption keys
  • Social sharing: One-click sharing to WhatsApp, Signal, and Viber with the paste URL embedded in the message
  • Control: Choose when to open and decrypt the paste, useful for burn-after-reading pastes
  • Zero-knowledge preserved: All operations remain client-side, no server ever sees decrypted content or encryption keys
  • PQC compatible: Fully supports Post-Quantum Cryptography (v3) pastes with longer hybrid keys

  To enable: Set both qrcode = true and qrshare = true in your configuration file.

Further resources

• FAQ

• Installation guide

• Configuration guide

• Templates

• Translation guide

• Developer guide

Run into any issues? Have ideas for further developments? Please report them!