PII Blackout
Offline PII redaction for PDF, Word and Excel
About PII Blackout
PII Blackout is a desktop app for Windows and macOS that finds and permanently redacts personal information in PDF, Word (.docx) and Excel (.xlsx) files without uploading them. It detects items such as Social Security numbers, client names, bank account and credit card numbers, and the site lists 70+ PII types, 61 of them for US legal and business work. Detection runs in two stages: regex and pattern rules scan every page first, then a dedicated PII language model refines the results, catching cases the rules miss and filtering out false positives. The site names Microsoft Presidio and GLiNER as the technology behind it.
The problem it targets is redacting confidential client files. Drawing black boxes page by page in Acrobat is slow and easy to get wrong, and cloud redaction tools send documents to third-party servers. PII Blackout ships its AI models in a local models folder, so documents stay on the machine; network access is only needed briefly to sign in and verify the subscription at launch. A browser demo lets you test a sample file first, and the full app is a download of about 1.2GB, also listed on the Microsoft Store.
Install the desktop app and point it at a file or a whole folder. The first step, Analyze and Preview, runs the two-stage detection and highlights every match in the document.
You then review the highlights. You can keep or remove matches, enter custom keywords specific to a case, and draw extra redaction boxes with the mouse. Nothing is blacked out until you confirm.
When you apply redaction, each affected page is rendered as a high-resolution image (400 DPI by default) and the selected areas are filled with solid black at the pixel level, so the text is erased rather than covered by an overlay. Each job produces the redacted file plus a page-by-page TXT report of every term removed, grouped by entity type.
- •Two-stage detection - Pattern rules followed by a PII language model, with custom keyword search on top.
- •Review before redaction - Every match is highlighted in the PDF for audit, and you can add or remove regions before anything is applied.
- •Permanent pixel-level blackout - Pages are rendered at 400 DPI and filled with black, so copy-paste cannot recover the removed text.
- •Batch folder processing - Run the same ruleset across folders of bank statements, resumes, litigation exhibits, HR records and discovery productions (Professional plan and above).
- •Audit report - A page-by-page TXT redaction report on every desktop job.
- •Offline operation and OCR - Models run locally, the app keeps working disconnected after sign-in, and scanned image-based PDFs get full OCR support. The interface and PII analysis cover English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch.
PII Blackout is aimed at solo attorneys, paralegals and small law firms redacting discovery productions, court filings and financial exhibits, and at small business owners and bookkeepers scrubbing bank statements, employee SSNs in HR and payroll records, and customer details in contracts before third-party review. The site also has guides for medical records, resumes and tax documents.
The free tier handles up to 3 PDFs a day with up to 15 pages each, which suits a first test. Day and Week passes cover a one-off job without a subscription, and the monthly or yearly Starter, Professional and Team plans fit regular work, with Team covering up to five devices and centralized device management.
Pricing
$0 - $149/mo
- Free$0/mo
- Starter$29/mo
- Professional$69/mo
- Team$149/mo
- Day Pass$9.90 once
- Week Pass$34.90 once
From the vendor pricing page, 2026-11-05
