Since 2024 · The original native Mac redaction app
The PII Redaction Tool That Stays on Your Mac
Emails, names, phone numbers, addresses, IPs, account numbers, license plates — detected and redacted automatically in your screenshots and PDFs. 100% on-device. GDPR-, HIPAA- and compliance-ready.
Get BlurData for Mac See what gets detectedWhat counts as PII — and why it matters
Personally Identifiable Information is any data that can identify a specific person, directly or in combination with other data. Names, emails and phone numbers are obvious. Less obvious: an IP address in a server log, a license plate in a parking photo, an internal user ID alongside a timestamp. Under GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA and dozens of similar laws, leaking PII through a screenshot or a PDF is a real legal risk — not just a reputational one.
The traditional answer is "be careful before you share." That works once. It doesn't scale to teams, support tickets, court filings, audit packets, marketing screenshots, dev docs, or anything posted on a public channel by someone who's tired. BlurData replaces "be careful" with "the file is clean before it leaves your Mac."
8 PII categories detected out of the box
Need more? Custom regex patterns let you redact internal user IDs, JWTs, API keys, ticket IDs, employee codes — anything your team treats as confidential.
How automatic PII detection works on Mac
1. On-device text recognition
BlurData reads the text in your screenshots and PDFs directly on your Mac. No cloud OCR service, no API key, no telemetry.
2. Automatic PII detection
Recognized text is checked against 8 built-in categories (emails, IPs, phones, account numbers, names…) plus any custom patterns you define. You see results in seconds.
3. Reversible review, irreversible export
Toggle categories or individual matches before export. Once exported, the redaction is rasterized into the image or removed from the PDF text layer — there is no hidden original.
BlurData vs other PII redaction approaches
vs cloud PII APIs
Services like AWS Comprehend, Google DLP and Azure Cognitive Services are powerful — but you have to upload the very document you're trying to keep private. BlurData stays on your Mac.
vs manual redaction
Preview, CleanShot X, Acrobat and similar tools require you to find each piece of PII yourself. For a 30-page PDF or a screenshot with 40 emails, that's not a workflow — it's a punishment.
vs enterprise tools
Nitro Smart Redact, PII Tools and Redactable target enterprise teams with enterprise pricing. BlurData gives an individual or small team the same automation for $79/year.
Frequently asked questions
What is PII and why does it need to be redacted?
PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is any data that can identify a specific person — names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, account numbers, IP addresses, license plates. Sharing PII without consent can violate GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA and similar privacy laws, and exposes individuals to fraud and harassment.
Which PII types does BlurData detect automatically?
BlurData detects 8 categories out of the box: emails, names and surnames, postal addresses, IP addresses, URLs, monetary values, bank account numbers and license plates. License plates are detected in images and videos too. You can add custom patterns for any additional identifier.
Does BlurData use a cloud AI model?
No. All PII detection runs on-device using native macOS frameworks. No data leaves your Mac. This is what makes BlurData suitable for GDPR-, HIPAA- and SOC-sensitive workflows.
How accurate is the auto-detection?
Pattern-based PII (emails, IPs, account numbers, URLs, license plates, amounts) is detected with near-perfect precision. Name detection runs fully on-device and is highly accurate on Western names; you can always review and correct before exporting.
Can I redact custom identifiers like internal user IDs or JWT tokens?
Yes. BlurData supports custom regex patterns so you can redact any project-specific identifier — internal user IDs, JWTs, API keys, ticket numbers, employee codes — in addition to the built-in PII categories.