Is Sign in with Google safe on a converter site? For signing in alone, generally yes: Google shares your name, email address and profile picture, and never your Google password. The risk comes from extra permissions, such as access to your Drive or Gmail, that a converter rarely needs. Refuse those, and remove the site's access when you are done.
What does a converter site see through Sign in with Google?
A converter site sees three things through Sign in with Google: your name, your email address and your profile picture. Google's help page on how Sign in with Google shares data lists exactly those three and says you cannot leave any of them out if you use the button.
What it does not see
The same page says Sign in with Google does not share your Google Account password. The converter cannot read your email, open your Drive or see your contacts through the sign-in alone. It gets a confirmed identity and a way to recognize you next time.
What it does with what it gets
Once shared, those details are governed by the converter's own privacy policy, not Google's. The converter may store your email address, send you marketing, or link it to the statements you upload. Read the converter's policy for that part, because Google's promises stop at the hand-over.
Google account permissions a converter should not ask for
A converter should not ask for Google account permissions beyond signing in. A request to read your Gmail, see all your Drive files or manage your contacts goes far past what converting a statement needs. If the consent screen lists more than your basic profile, cancel and find another way to sign in or another site.
How to read the consent screen
Google shows a consent screen before it shares anything. Read every line on it. Basic sign-in names your profile information and email address. Anything listing Drive, Gmail, Calendar or contacts is a separate request for access to your data, which Google's page on managing third-party connections treats as its own kind of connection.
A reasonable exception
A converter that offers to save results straight into your Drive might ask for permission to create files. Even then, access limited to files the app creates is very different from access to every file you own. If the wording is broad, skip the feature and download the result instead.
Downloads that want your account
Be just as careful with desktop programs that ask you to sign in with Google before they will convert anything. A program from an unknown source has no business holding a link to your Google account. The risks of a full version PDF to Excel converter download covers what else those downloads can carry.
Is Sign in with Google safer than a converter password?
Sign in with Google can be safer than a converter password because the site never stores a password of yours to leak, and your Google account may already have two-step verification. The trade-off is that one account now unlocks many sites, so protecting that Google account matters more.
Where it helps
If a converter is breached, a stored password is a common loss, and people often reuse passwords. With Google sign-in there is no converter password to steal. Your Google account's own protections, such as two-step verification, apply to every site you reach through it.
Where it costs you
Every site you link becomes a reason for attackers to target your Google account. If that account is taken, so are all the sites linked to it. Turn on two-step verification or a passkey for your Google account before you use it widely.
A third option
Some sites avoid both by emailing you a one-time sign-in link. CheapBankConvert signs people in that way, with no password to set. A site that needs no account at all, or a free offline converter that runs on your own computer, removes the login question entirely.
Removing a converter's Google sign-in access later
You can remove a converter's Google sign-in access from your Google Account at any time, in a minute or two. Removing it stops automatic sign-in and future updates to your profile reaching the site. It does not delete anything the converter already holds, so ask the converter separately to delete your account and files.
Follow these steps, based on Google's page on managing third-party connections:
- Go to myaccount.google.com/linkedapps while signed in to your Google account.
- Find the converter in the list and select it.
- Select "Stop using Sign in with Google" and confirm.
- If the converter also has access to your data, select "Remove access" and confirm.
- Email the converter and ask it to delete your account, your uploads and your results.
Why the last step matters
Google's page on data sharing says removing consent does not take back data already shared, and that you may need to ask the app to delete what it has. Keep the converter's reply.
Make this a routine
Review the linked apps list a couple of times a year. Remove any converter or tool you no longer use. Fewer connections mean fewer places your account can be reached from.
Sign in with Google edge case: a fake Google window
The edge case with Sign in with Google is a fake Google window. A dishonest site can show a pop-up that looks like Google's sign-in page but sends your password to the site itself. The real page always asks for your password on a Google address, and on your computer it opens with a real browser address bar.
How to check
Look at the address in the sign-in window. It should be on accounts.google.com. If the window has no address bar, or you cannot drag it outside the page, it may be part of the site drawn to look like a window. Close it and sign in to Google in a separate tab first; a real button then needs only a click.
Protecting the files as well as the login
Even with a genuine sign-in, the statement you upload is the more valuable thing. Redacting a bank statement before upload removes the fields a converter does not need. If the converted file is headed for your business books, such as a profit and loss built from bank statements, keep the finished spreadsheet in your own files rather than in the converter's account.