ShadowClip

ShadowClip is an application designed to help users redact sensitive information from screenshots before sharing them. It operates entirely on-device for both macOS and iOS, ensuring that no image data leaves the user's device at any point. The tool is intended for individuals who need to remove confidential or personal data from images, such as credentials, personal identification information, or faces, prior to distribution.

Users can import images into ShadowClip through drag-and-drop, the Share Extension from various apps, or Finder Quick Actions on macOS. Once an image is added, the app analyzes it using Apple's Vision framework for optical character recognition (OCR), face detection, and barcode recognition, as well as the Natural Language framework for identifying named entities like names, organizations, and locations. Additionally, ShadowClip employs custom pattern matchers to detect credentials such as AWS access keys, OpenAI keys, GitHub tokens, Stripe keys, Anthropic keys, Slack tokens, JWTs, and more than 15 other formats. It also identifies structured personal information including credit card numbers, IBANs, email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, MAC addresses, social security numbers, national insurance numbers, and postal addresses using Apple's NSDataDetector.

After detection, users are presented with a review screen that lists all identified sensitive elements overlaid on the image. Each word is individually clickable for manual redaction, and users can draw rectangles to cover regions without text, such as handwritten notes or faces in logos. The original image remains untouched; the redacted version is saved as a new PNG file, with the option to copy it to the clipboard or generate an audit sidecar containing redaction categories and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the output.

ShadowClip enforces privacy by design: it has no network entitlement, does not collect telemetry, requires no account, and processes images in memory without writing the originals to disk. The app is a one-time purchase covering both macOS (macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Apple Silicon and Intel) and iOS (iOS 17 or later), and supports Family Sharing. The software is developed and maintained by Quiet Signals Lab.