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. Choose a black bar, a white bar, or a random-noise scramble.
Auto-detect the sensitive stuff
One click finds emails, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, card numbers, IP addresses, and faces — this page or every page. It runs entirely on-device with Apple's Vision framework.
Find & redact by text
Black out every occurrence of a specific word or number across the document, with an optional fuzzy match that catches close spellings and OCR slips.
Images & multi-page PDFs
Drop a screenshot, a photo, or a long PDF. A thumbnail sidebar tracks redactions per page, and you can sweep every page in a single pass. Exported PDFs are rasterized so nothing lingers underneath.
Draw, adjust, undo
Drag to place a bar, then move or resize it; ⌫ removes it and there's full named undo & redo. Save an editable .topsecret session and 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. Drag bars on by hand, or run the same on-device pass for emails, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, card numbers, IP addresses, and faces. Find & Redact and fuzzy match come along, and multi-page PDFs get the page sidebar on iPad.
Export is flattened exactly as on the Mac — the hidden pixels are gone, not covered. Bars are always solid black here; the white-bar and noise styles stay a Mac feature. 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.