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Text Redactor

A text redactor scans pasted text for people, places, organisations, addresses, and contact details, then replaces each one with a numbered tag such as [PERSON 1] or [EMAIL], so the same person or place keeps the same tag everywhere it is mentioned.

Scanned live as you type. Files stay in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.

Redacted text
Redacted text will appear here.

How to redact names and personal info from text

  1. Paste or drop your text

    Paste a letter, email thread, or any document into the box, or drop a .txt or .md file onto it. Pattern matches like emails and phone numbers appear immediately.

  2. Wait for names to fill in

    Names, places, and organisations need a one-time download the first time the page runs them, shown as a progress bar, then fill in on top of the pattern matches.

  3. Review the findings

    Each person, place, and organisation is listed once with how many times it was mentioned, and every other detected value gets its own row with a masked preview.

  4. Copy or download the result

    Uncheck anything that should stay visible, then copy the redacted text or download it as a .txt file.

Why use this tool

Numbered, consistent tags

The same person keeps the same tag everywhere, including a later mention by surname alone, such as [PERSON 1] for every appearance of Sarah Mitchell, [ORG 1] for every appearance of Acme Corporation, and so on for places and addresses.

Four detection categories

People's names, places and street addresses, companies and organisations, and contact details (emails, phone numbers, card numbers, IBANs, and other IDs) can each be toggled on or off, and the text re-scans instantly.

Patterns first, names when ready

Emails, phone numbers, card numbers, and similar values are found immediately. Names, places, and organisations need a model that downloads once, shown with its own progress bar, and layer in as soon as it is ready.

One tick box per person or place

Unchecking a person's row puts every mention of them back in the result at once, rather than one occurrence at a time, since a name usually appears more than once in a document.

Built for long documents

Scanning is debounced so pasting a long document stays responsive while you type, and both the input and the redacted output scroll instead of growing the page.

Nothing leaves your browser

The text you paste or drop, and everything found in it, stays on your device. Nothing is uploaded or logged.

About this tool

This tool scans pasted text, or a dropped .txt or .md file, for the kinds of detail that should not be shared freely: people, places, companies and organisations, street addresses, and contact details such as emails, phone numbers, card numbers, and IBANs. People, places, and organisations are each numbered the first time they appear and keep that same number for every later mention, including a mention by surname alone or a first name alone, when only one person fits. Contact details and other identifiers get their own type label instead, such as [EMAIL] or [CARD_NUMBER], matching the labels used by the secrets scrubber.

Pattern-based matches like emails and card numbers appear the moment text is pasted. Names, places, and organisations rely on a larger detector that downloads once per browser, shown with its own progress bar, and fills in on top of the pattern matches as soon as it finishes, so a long document is never left blank while that happens. The findings list groups every mention of the same person, place, or organisation under one tick box, so unchecking it restores all of their mentions at once, while contact details and other identifiers are listed individually with a short masked preview.

Detection works on plain text, so formatting such as line breaks and paragraph spacing is preserved in the redacted output. For a document that is a PDF rather than pasted text, the PDF redactor covers scanned and text-layer pages the same way. A dropped Markdown file can be converted back to formatted text afterwards with this converter.

Frequently asked questions

How does the tool decide who or what to redact?
Emails, phone numbers, card numbers, IBANs, and similar values are matched against known formats. People, places, organisations, and street addresses are found by a detector that reads the whole document and is numbered consistently: the same person, place, or organisation gets the same tag everywhere it is mentioned, including later mentions by a surname or first name alone when that is unambiguous.
Is the text I paste uploaded anywhere?
No. Scanning, redaction, and the findings list are all computed on your device, including the one-time download used to find names, places, and organisations. The text you paste or drop, and everything found in it, is never sent to a server, stored, or logged.
What kind of input works best?
Plain text works best: pasted letters, email threads, articles, or reports, or a dropped .txt or .md file. The tool works on the text directly, so line breaks and paragraph spacing are preserved in the redacted output. Other file types are rejected.
Can I keep a specific name or value instead of redacting it?
Yes. Unchecking a person, place, or organisation's row restores every one of their mentions at once; unchecking a contact detail restores just that value. This resets whenever the text or the toggled categories change, since the findings themselves change too.
Why is a name missing right after I paste, but shows up a moment later?
Emails, phone numbers, and similar pattern matches appear immediately. Names, places, and organisations are found by a larger detector that downloads once per browser, shown with its own progress bar, and those results fill in on top as soon as it finishes.
Is there a limit on how much text I can scan?
No fixed limit. Scanning is debounced so a large document stays responsive while you type, and both the input and the redacted output scroll instead of stretching the page.

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