Frequently asked questions
Short answers to what people ask before sending a paste link. If something is missing, the contact page is the place to ask.
Getting started
What is pastesite.com?
A fast, free paste-sharing site for text and code. Paste your content, get a link, share it. No account required — just visit the home page, paste your text, and click create. You get an instant shareable link that anyone can open.
Do I need an account?
No. Anonymous pasting works without any sign-up. Creating a free account adds a personal dashboard where all your pastes are saved, lets you organize them into folders, edit them anytime, and pick up where you left off on any device. Accounts are optional and always free.
How do I share a paste?
After creating a paste, you will see a confirmation page with a shareable link. Copy it and send it to anyone — via chat, email, a ticket, or anywhere else. Anyone who has the link can open the paste in their browser.
How large can a paste be?
Up to 100,000 characters per paste. That is roughly 1,500 lines of code or a few hundred pages of text. If you need to share something larger, consider splitting it into multiple pastes.
Privacy & visibility
What is the difference between public and unlisted?
Public pastes appear in the Recent and Trending feeds and can be found by anyone browsing the site. Unlisted pastes are only accessible to people who have the direct link — they never show up in any public list or search.
Can I password-protect a paste?
Yes. When creating a paste, enter a password in the password field. The paste will require that password before anyone can view its content. The password is stored only as an irreversible hash — we never see or store the plaintext password.
Can I make a paste disappear automatically?
Yes, two ways. Expiring pastes automatically delete after a time you choose — 10 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month. Burn-after-read pastes delete themselves the moment someone first opens them — perfect for sensitive one-time messages.
Are my pastes encrypted?
Pastes are stored on our database provider’s infrastructure. Password-protected pastes require the password to view, but the content itself is not encrypted at rest — anyone with the link and password can read it. Do not paste passwords, API keys, or personal data. Anything you paste may be visible to anyone who has the link.
Features
What languages are supported for syntax highlighting?
Over 30 languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Bash, SQL, JSON, CSS, HTML, XML, YAML, TOML, Markdown, Diff, Dockerfile, C, C++, C#, Java, Kotlin, Swift, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, Lua, Perl, R, Scala, Dart, PowerShell, and plain text. Select the language when creating or editing a paste to get proper syntax coloring.
Can I download a paste as a file?
Yes. Every paste view page has a Download button that saves the content as a file with the correct extension for the language — for example, a Python paste downloads as a .py file, JavaScript as .js, and so on. The filename is based on the paste title.
What is forking a paste?
Forking creates a new paste starting from the content of an existing one. Click the Fork button on any paste to open the create form pre-filled with that paste’s content, title, and language. The new paste shows a "forked from" badge linking back to the original.
Can I use a custom URL for my paste?
Yes. When creating a paste, enter a custom slug in the Custom URL field — for example "my-config" gives you a link like pastesite.com/#/p/my-config. Slugs must be 3-30 characters, lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens. Reserved words and already-taken slugs are rejected.
What is the Trending page?
The Trending page shows the most-viewed public pastes from the last 30 days, ranked by view count. It is a great way to discover popular content. Only public, non-password-protected, non-expired pastes appear there.
Is there a raw view?
Yes. Every paste has a Raw view that shows the plain text without any formatting or syntax highlighting. This is useful for piping content into terminal commands with curl or for embedding in other tools.
Can I embed a paste on another website?
Yes. Signed-in users see an embed section at the bottom of each paste view page. Copy the iframe snippet and paste it into your site’s HTML to embed the paste with syntax highlighting preserved.
Account & dashboard
What does the dashboard do?
The dashboard shows every paste you created while signed in, with stats like total views and paste count. You can search, filter by folder, edit any paste, delete pastes, copy share links, and organize pastes into folders for easy management.
Can I edit a paste after creating it?
Yes, if you created it while signed in. Open the paste and click Edit, or use the Edit button in your dashboard. Each edit saves a revision snapshot so you can see what changed. Burn-after-read and expired pastes cannot be edited.
Can I delete a paste?
Yes. Signed-in users can delete any paste they own from the dashboard or the paste view page. Anonymous pastes (created without an account) cannot be deleted manually — use expiration or burn-after-read if you need anonymous pastes to disappear.
What are folders?
Folders let you organize your pastes in the dashboard. Create folders like "Work snippets" or "Bug reports" and assign pastes to them. Filter by folder to quickly find what you need. Deleting a folder does not delete the pastes inside — they just become unfiled.
What is a public profile?
Every account has a public profile page at pastesite.com/#/u/your-username that lists your public pastes. You can customize your username and display name from the dashboard. Unlisted pastes never appear on your public profile.
Can I change my password?
Yes, in the dashboard under “Sign-in details” → “Change password”. Your current password is asked for first, so a borrowed browser session cannot take the account; if two-factor is on, a code from your authenticator stands in for it. The change signs out every other device signed in to the account — a password change after a leak is worth nothing if the session that leaked stays valid. Forgotten it instead? “Forgot your password?” on the sign-in page emails a one-time link that works once and expires after an hour.
Can I change my email address?
Yes, in the dashboard under “Sign-in details” → “Change email”. Supabase sends a confirmation link to the new address, and the address only changes once it is opened. If you still have access to the old address, you will get a confirmation there too and both have to be opened — that is what stops somebody who has your session from quietly moving the account to their own inbox. Lost access to the old address and cannot confirm? Contact us.
Abuse & safety
How do I report an abusive paste?
Every paste has a Report button. Click it, enter a short reason, and submit. We review reports and take action where appropriate — including removing the paste, blocking the submitter, and escalating illegal content to the authorities.
Is the content moderated?
Pastes are not reviewed before they are published — the service is a passive intermediary. We act on abuse reports after content is posted. If you see something that violates our terms, please report it.
What should I not paste?
Do not paste illegal content, malware, phishing pages, spam, personal data of others without consent, or anything that infringes someone else’s rights. You are legally responsible for what you submit. See our Terms page for the full acceptable use policy.
Technical
Is there an API?
Yes. The frontend uses a REST API under /api/*, and signed-in users can create a personal API key in the dashboard. Send the key as a Bearer token to create pastes from scripts. The API guide at pastesite.com/docs/api.html lists every endpoint and has copy-paste curl examples.
How do I create an API key?
Sign in, open your dashboard, and find the API keys section. Create a key and copy it when it appears — it is shown only once. Keys act as your account, so keep them secret and revoke one from the same section if it leaks.
Can I use pastesite.com from the command line?
Yes. Create an API key in your dashboard, then POST JSON to /api/pastes with an Authorization: Bearer header. The response includes a shareable url. For reading, GET /raw/<id> returns plain text, so you can pipe it into other tools. The API guide has full curl examples.
How does the view counter work?
Each time someone opens a paste view page or fetches its raw text, the server increments the view count by one. Burn-after-read pastes do not increment the counter — they are deleted on first open or fetch instead. Views are displayed on the paste page and in the dashboard.
Do you store my IP address?
No. To rate-limit abuse, the server stores only a salted, irreversible SHA-256 hash of your IP address with each paste creation — never the IP itself. Human verification is handled by Cloudflare Turnstile under their privacy policy.
What does the site record when something breaks?
The route and the kind of failure — for example "/p/:id TypeError" — with the ids removed, kept for 7 days. No error message, no stack trace, no IP address and none of your content: a crash is often caused by the text on the page, so a field for an error message would end up holding fragments of pastes. It is what makes a broken page visible to us instead of only to you.