TopSecret
Black out anything sensitive in an image or PDF — draw the bars yourself or let TopSecret find emails, IDs, card numbers, and faces for you. Export a flattened copy where the hidden data is genuinely gone, not just covered. Everything runs on your own device, on Mac, iPhone, and iPad alike.
Or pick it up in a bundle with over twenty other apps. Also available on Setapp.
What it does
Real redaction, not a sticker
Bars are burned into a new flattened file — the pixels underneath are recomputed, so the hidden text or face can't be selected, copied, or recovered. Every bar is solid black, so nothing of the original survives.
Auto-detect the sensitive stuff
Switch on emails, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, card numbers, IP addresses, or faces and every match in the document is blacked out; switch one off and they come back. It runs entirely on-device with Apple's Vision framework.
Find & redact by text
Keep a list of words, numbers, or whole blocks of text — an address, a signature — and every match stays blacked out until you remove it. Fuzzy match catches close spellings and OCR slips, and the lists you use often save as sets.
Images & multi-page PDFs
Drop a screenshot, a photo, or a long PDF. A page list tracks redactions per page, and every rule covers every page, so nothing slips through on one you didn't check. Exported PDFs are rasterized so nothing lingers underneath.
Draw, select, undo
Drag to place a bar, then move or resize it, or select text on the page to copy it, redact it, or redact every copy of it. Full named undo & redo, and an editable .topsecret session to pick the work back up later.
Private by design, on every device
No network, no accounts, no telemetry — TopSecret only ever touches the file you hand it, on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Detection and flattening run entirely on-device, so nothing sensitive ever leaves it. Localized in 11 languages; the Mac direct download keeps itself current via Sparkle.
Screenshots
On iPhone and iPad
Redact it before you send it.
TopSecret is a native iPhone and iPad app too. Pull a shot out of Photos, a PDF out of Files, or hand one over with Open in TopSecret from any app’s share sheet. Everything the Mac does comes along: the Auto-Detect switches, the Find & Redact list with saved sets and fuzzy match, Select Text, undo, and pinch to zoom. On iPad the tools sit in a sidebar beside the page, with the page list for multi-page PDFs; on iPhone they’re a tap away.
Export is flattened exactly as on the Mac — the hidden pixels are gone, not covered. Same App Store purchase, so buying it once covers all your devices.
Get TopSecret
On the App Store for Mac, iPhone, and iPad — one purchase covers all three. Or a notarized direct download for the Mac, with a free trial. Buying more than one app? TopSecret is included in my bundles, along with over twenty other apps. Also available on Setapp.
Support
Questions, bug reports, or feature requests? Email ben.dansby@gmail.com and you’ll get a reply, usually within a day or two. See the privacy policy.
For how-to documentation, see the TopSecret documentation.