Pocket-ObSecura docs

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Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
• macOS 11 or later, on an Apple Silicon or Intel Mac. Each kind of Mac has its own download.
• No administrator rights, internet connection, or account.
• 8 GB of memory is enough, including for on-device name detection.

Availability

Pocket-ObSecura is in development and is not available to download yet. To try an early build, email us and ask for early access.

Install on Windows

1. Run the Pocket-ObSecura setup program.
2. If you want them, tick Create a desktop shortcut and Add 'Scan with Pocket-ObSecura' to Explorer right-click menu. Both are off by default.
3. Finish setup. Leave Launch Pocket-ObSecura ticked to open the app.

Setup installs the app in your own user folder, without administrator rights, and adds it to the Start menu. The right-click entry, Scan with Pocket-ObSecura, opens the file or folder you clicked in the app, ready to scan; on Windows 11 it is under Show more options.

Install on macOS

1. Open the Pocket-ObSecura disk image for your Mac: Apple Silicon or Intel.
2. Drag Pocket-ObSecura onto the Applications folder in the same window.
3. Open Pocket-ObSecura from your Applications folder.

First launch

There is nothing to sign in to or activate. The window opens on Drop documents here, with the steps Open, Review, and Export and the line Everything stays on this computer. The status bar reads Pocket-ObSecura • offline • no cloud.

Updating and uninstalling

Pocket-ObSecura never checks for updates, because it never goes online. To update, install the new version over the old one; your settings are kept.

• Windows: uninstall Pocket-ObSecura from Settings → Apps. Your preferences file, settings.json, stays in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Pocket-ObSecura; delete that folder to remove everything.
• macOS: drag Pocket-ObSecura from Applications to the Trash. Your preferences are in ~/Library/Application Support/Pocket-ObSecura.

Scan and review

Every job has three steps: open your files, scan and review the findings, then export. Nothing is written until you export, and your originals are never changed.

Open files

• Drag files or folders anywhere onto the window, or click Open File… (Ctrl+O or ⌘+O) or Open Folder…. Open Folder… adds the supported files directly inside the folder; a dragged folder is added with its subfolders.
• Supported files: CSV, Excel (.xlsx), Word (.docx), PDF, email (.eml and Outlook .msg), plain text (.txt, .md, .log), and PNG or JPEG images.
• Each file appears in the Files list with its format and number of findings. Click a file to work on it.

If a file has parts Pocket-ObSecura cannot clean, a message titled This file has content Pocket-ObSecura cannot sanitize lists them when you open it. For example, an embedded object in a Word document is copied unchanged, and email attachments are removed. Read the list before you share the copy.

Choose what to look for

Pick a Profile at the top right, or tick boxes under Data types to detect. A profile ticks its data types for you and decides which are redacted (blacked out) instead of replaced with stand-ins; the status bar then ends with Re-scan to apply. With no profile, the menu reads Custom (checkboxes): secret keys are redacted and everything else is replaced.

Scan

1. Select a file in the Files list.
2. Click Scan (F5), or Scan All to scan every open file.
3. When the Scanning… bar disappears, the status bar reads Detected N findings in file.

Scanned PDF pages and images are read with built-in text recognition, which is never perfect, so review their findings with extra care. The same person or company gets the same stand-in in every open file, so open files that belong together in one session.

Read the findings

The top of the window shows Original and Sanitized (Proposed) side by side; the right side updates as you decide. Findings are tinted by status: amber for pending, green for approved, red for denied, dark for redacted, and gray for ignored.

The Findings table shows each finding’s Type, Original value, proposed Replacement, detection confidence (Conf, 0 to 1), Status, the Action export will take (Replace, Redact, or Ignore), its Location in the file, and the Decide buttons. Above it, a line such as 12 of 40 decided · 28 still pending. tracks progress until it reads All 40 finding(s) decided — ready to export. Click a data-type chip to show only that type, or type in Search original, replacement, location…; ✕ clears both.

Decide on each finding

To use your own stand-in, double-click the Replacement cell (or select it and press F2), type the value, press Enter, and approve the row. Letter keys act on the selected row only when you are not typing in a cell.

To decide many findings at once, use the buttons above the table: Approve ≥0.9 and Deny ≤0.5 act by confidence, Approve All and Deny All decide everything, and Reset returns every finding to its state after the scan. They always act on the whole file, even while a filter is on, and they skip findings the scan held back: column headings and form labels, listed as Ignored so your headings survive. If one of those really is data, approve it with its own button.

Keyboard shortcuts

The toolbar’s Shortcuts button shows this list in the app.

Export and verify

Export a file

1. Select the file and click Export (Ctrl+E or ⌘+E).
2. If findings are still pending, Findings still pending asks whether to approve them all. Choose OK to approve them and continue, or Cancel to decide them yourself.
3. Choose the folder for the copy.
4. Pocket-ObSecura writes the copy, named like payroll.sanitized.xlsx, and checks it straight away.

Export All exports every open file in turn, asking for a folder for each, and lists any that did not export under Export All — results. A file with no findings asks before exporting an unchanged copy (Nothing to sanitize).

What each format looks like afterward

Verification

Every export is checked as soon as it is written. Pocket-ObSecura reads the new file twice, once the way it reads any document and once with a separate reader that looks inside every part of the file, and searches for every original value you did not deliberately keep. The result appears in the status bar:

• ✓ Verified, with a count such as (38/40 applied): no original value was found.
• ⚠ Verified (with caveats): nothing was found, but part of the file could not be read by the separate reader. A message lists what was not checked.
• ✗ 2 verification flag(s): two original values are still in the copy. Do not share it; approve or redact the remaining findings and export again.

Click Verify to check the selected file’s last export again. Findings you denied or ignored count as deliberately left, not as leaks.

Audit report

Choose Export → Export Audit Report... to save a report of the session as a JSON file (suggested name pocket-obsecura-audit.json). For each open file it records the location and format, fingerprints of the original and the copy, counts of findings by type and decision, and the verification result, plus the export settings. It never contains an original value.

AI round trip

The AI round trip lets you work with an AI tool without showing it real names or numbers. Open it with Tools → AI round trip…, the AI round trip toolbar button, or Ctrl+T (⌘+T). It opens in its own window beside your work.

Sanitize text

1. On the Sanitize text tab, paste your text into Original (stays on this computer).
2. Click Sanitize. The masked text appears under Sanitized (safe to paste into an AI), with a summary such as 3 replaced, 1 redacted.
3. Click Copy sanitized and paste the result into your AI tool.

Pasted text uses the current profile and data types and gets the same stand-ins as your open files. Every finding is applied automatically, as Approve All would, so read the result before you send it.

Decode an AI reply

1. On the Decode AI reply tab, paste the AI’s answer into AI reply (mentions the fakes).
2. Click Decode. The real values appear under Decoded (real values restored), with a summary such as 5 value(s) restored.
3. Click Copy decoded to use the result. Clear all empties both tabs.

Decode knows the stand-ins from findings you approved in your open files and from your last Sanitize. Redacted values cannot be restored; the summary counts any it finds.

Command line

The command-line tool, pocket-obsecura, brings the same detection, profiles, stand-ins, and checks to scripts and batch jobs. There is no review step: every finding is applied with the profile’s action, except column headings and form labels, which stay in place unless you add --include-ignored. The default profile is AI Upload; choose another with --profile "Legal Redaction", and list them with pocket-obsecura profile list.

Add --json for machine-readable output. With scan, export, and watch, --ocr picks the text-recognition set: standard, accurate, multilingual, or multilingualaccurate. Folder runs include subfolders and skip hidden files and folders. All copies go into the one output folder; if two files would produce the same name, the second is reported instead of overwriting the first. Files exported in one run share stand-ins; a separate run produces new ones.

Watching a folder

watch checks the folder every 5 seconds (change this with --interval) and exports a file once it has stopped changing and is new or changed since its last export. It never treats the output folder, or files named *.sanitized.*, as sources. Add --once to make one pass and exit; a later pass skips files whose copy is up to date.

Exit codes

Settings and policy

Click Settings on the toolbar or menu bar. Changes apply immediately and are remembered between sessions.

Organization policy (for administrators)

An administrator can enforce settings with a policy file named pocket-obsecura.policy.json, read at startup from two places. The machine-wide file wins wherever both set the same thing, and users can edit their own per-user file, so use the machine-wide location to make a policy stick.

A minimal policy: {"RequireApprovalBeforeExport": true, "RequireMetadataStripping": true, "RequireVerification": true}. Setting names are case-sensitive. While a policy is active, the status bar lists what it controls, starting with Organization policy active. The Settings checkboxes stay clickable, but the policy is applied at the moment of import, export, or verification.

A policy file that cannot be read is not ignored: Pocket-ObSecura shows Organization policy unreadable, names the file, and requires approval, metadata stripping, and verification until it is fixed. The command-line tool follows the same policy and exits with code 7 when it refuses; under RequireApprovalBeforeExport, export and watch also need --approve-pending.

Privacy and data

• No internet, ever. Pocket-ObSecura makes no network connections: no telemetry, no account, no online activation, and no update checks. Text recognition and name detection run on your computer.
• Your documents stay in memory. Open files, findings, original values, and stand-ins exist only while the app is open. Nothing from them is saved between sessions, so each session starts with fresh stand-ins.
• What is written to disk: the copies you export, the audit reports you save, and your preferences (settings.json: the color scheme and your switches, never document content). If the app crashes, a short crash log in your temporary folder records where in the program it failed, never document content.
• Your originals are never changed. Every export is a new file.
• Audit reports never hold original values, but they do record file paths, which can themselves reveal a client’s name. An administrator can limit them to file names.
• The clipboard is used only when you click a Copy button in the AI round trip.

Pocket-ObSecura does not protect files from someone who already has full access to your computer; use your system’s disk encryption for that. It is also not a forensic redaction tool: if a PDF must keep its exact appearance with provable removal, use a specialized tool.

Troubleshooting and help

Common messages

• Unsupported file (“No adapter for …”): the file type is not supported. See Scan and review for the list.
• Blocked by organization policy: your administrator allows only the file types the message names.
• This file has content Pocket-ObSecura cannot sanitize: parts of the file will be copied unchanged or removed. Read the list before sharing the copy.
• Detector failure — findings may be incomplete: one kind of detection failed on part of the file, so values of that type may remain. Scan again, and if it recurs, email us.
• Export blocked: a scan is still running. Wait for it to finish.
• Export failed, mentioning redact-only overlay or manual review: set PDF export mode in Settings back to TextReconstruction.
• ✗ … verification flag(s): original values remain in the copy. Approve or redact the remaining findings, then export again.

Known limits

• Amounts are found only when written with a currency symbol or code, and street addresses are not found at all.
• Pattern rules and on-device AI can misfire: a document title may be read as a name, and a greeting such as “Hello team” as a company. Deny ≤0.5 catches many of these; deny the rest by hand.
• On a PDF page with both text and images, text inside the images is not read, and the export drops the images. You are warned when a file has such pages.
• Stand-ins are consistent within one session. Open related files together; a new session produces different stand-ins.

Opening an early-access build

• macOS says Pocket-ObSecura cannot be opened: Control-click the app in Applications, choose Open, and confirm. If macOS still refuses, go to System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.
• Windows shows “Windows protected your PC”: click More info, then Run anyway.

Getting help

If something does not work as described here, email us. Tell us your operating system, the file type, and the exact message you saw. Please do not send the document itself or any sensitive values.