Using Inkfish
Inkfish redacts a PDF in four steps: drop the file in, let the squid scan it, review what it found, then ink the items you keep. It runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, works offline and needs no account.
Step 01 — Get started
Drag a PDF onto the Inkfish window, click Choose PDF…, or use Open With › Inkfish in Finder. The rules button under the drop area shows which rule packs are on. Inkfish picks your region pack from your Mac’s region; change it in Settings › Detection rules if your documents mostly come from somewhere else.
Step 02 — Let the squid scan
The squid swims across each page while findings appear on the right, with a running “Page N of M · K found” count. Pages without a text layer are read with on-device text recognition in English, Chinese or German. You can stop a scan at any time.
Step 03 — Review what it found
Each finding shows how many times it appears, its kind, its pages and a confidence score. Point at a row, or move through the list with the arrow keys, and the squid swims to that spot on the page. Then:
- Tick or untick findings. Items at or above 85% confidence start ticked.
- Use Mark area to cover anything by hand.
- Use Add rule to find every occurrence of a word or pattern.
- Select text in the document to cover it or turn it into a rule.
The rule packs decide which kinds of information are looked for:
| Rule pack | When it is on | Examples of what it finds |
|---|---|---|
| General | Always | Person names, email, phone (US and international +country-code formats), street address (US, German and Chinese formats), date of birth, IP address, organization, passport (MRZ), signature |
| United States | Your region, or added | SSN, ITIN, ABA routing number, driver’s license, passport, ZIP code |
| European Union | Your region, or added | personal identifiers (German ID card, French NIR, Spanish DNI, Italian codice fiscale, Dutch BSN), VAT number, IBAN, health insurance card, tax ID |
| United Kingdom | Your region, or added | National Insurance number, NHS number, sort code, postcode, passport |
| Mainland China | Your region, or added | Resident ID, mobile number, unified social credit code, bank card, travel permit and passport, licence plate |
| Finance | On by default | Card number, expiry and CVV, bank account, IBAN, SWIFT/BIC |
| Healthcare | Optional | Medical record number, NPI, health plan ID, MBI, DEA number, ICD-10 code, device serial |
Step 04 — Ink and save
Click Ink N items (⌘↩). The squid sprays each page while Inkfish writes the safe copy, removing the covered text from the page content. It then reopens the copy and checks that nothing can be extracted under any cover, and the done panel lists what was removed.
Settings › Redaction controls the cover style (black box, white box, or a label such as EMAIL) and what else is stripped: document metadata, hidden text and layers, comments, form values and attachments. Settings › Output sets the file suffix, the save location and an optional CSV report.
Step 05 — Getting help
Answers to common questions are on the FAQ page. For anything else, email [email protected] with your macOS version and the step that went wrong, and please do not attach the original private file.