Your Documents.
Your Privacy.

Drop a file in, get a clean file out. PII Buddy watches a folder and automatically redacts names, emails, SSNs, phone numbers, and 11+ PII types from PDFs, Word docs, and text files. Runs locally — no data leaves your machine.

Arbie the PII Buddy mascot covering eyes — your privacy is safe

Built for Privacy

Everything you need to strip PII from documents before sharing, reviewing, or storing them.

📂

Folder Watcher

Drop files into a watched folder and get clean versions automatically. Originals are backed up and auto-deleted after 24 hours.

🔍

Multi-Pass Detection

Regex patterns, spaCy NER, document-type awareness, and confidence scoring work together across multiple passes for thorough detection.

📄

PDF, DOCX & TXT

Process PDFs, Word documents, and plain text. Output in the same format or convert to text. Your choice.

🔄

Reversible Redaction

Every redaction creates a mapping file so you can restore the original PII when needed. Nothing is permanently lost.

📋

Clipboard Mode

Copy text, run the clipboard command, and paste the redacted version. Also supports piped input for scripting workflows.

🖥️

Mac Menu Bar App

One-click access from your menu bar. See Arbie's status at a glance — ready, processing, or done.

11+ PII types detected — names, emails, phone numbers, SSNs, addresses, dates of birth, URLs, IDs, credentials, and more

How It Works

Three steps. Zero complexity. Arbie handles the rest.

1
Arbie ready — drop your files

Drop Your Files

Place documents in the watched folder or use clipboard/pipe mode.

2
Arbie processing — PII gets redacted

PII Gets Redacted

Multi-pass detection finds and replaces PII with tagged placeholders.

3
Arbie done — clean files out

Clean Files Out

Redacted files appear in the output folder with a mapping file for reversal.

Before After
Sarah Chen
sarah.chen@gmail.com
(555) 867-5309
123 Oak Street, Apt 4B
SSN: 123-45-6789

Experience at Acme Corp
January 2020 - Present
<NAME SC>
<<EMAIL_1>>
<<PHONE_1>>
<<ADDRESS_1>>
SSN: <<SSN_1>>

Experience at Acme Corp
January 2020 - Present

Pricing

Core redaction is free and runs entirely on your machine. Cloud verification adds an optional LLM-powered accuracy boost.

Open Source

Free
Forever. No catch.
  • Local multi-pass PII detection
  • All file formats (PDF, DOCX, TXT)
  • Folder watcher, clipboard & pipe modes
  • Mac menu bar app
  • Reversible redaction with mapping files
  • MIT licensed
Download Free

Verify Team

$25/mo
15,000 verification shards / month
  • Everything in Verify Pro
  • 15,000 shards / month
  • Team API keys
  • Priority support
Coming Soon

Get Started

Up and running in under a minute.

Mac App (DMG)

Download the latest release and drag to Applications. On first launch, right-click the app and choose "Open" to bypass Gatekeeper.

Download for Mac

CLI Install

Clone the repo and run the setup script.

git clone https://github.com/rahhbster/pii_buddy.git
cd pii_buddy && ./setup.sh
View Instructions

Help Improve Detection

Found PII that wasn't caught? Your feedback makes PII Buddy smarter for everyone.

Stay Updated

Get notified about new features, detection improvements, and releases. No spam, ever.