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Changelog

What's new

Changes you will notice, release by release.

Release notes are written in English.

Unreleased

  • New look: blue design with a new eraser logo, light and dark, and a sidebar with Home, Redact, Batch, History, Templates and Watch folder.
  • Home shows quick actions and your recent documents; History lists every copy made on this computer with its report details (turn it off or clear it in Settings > Privacy & data).
  • The welcome screen opens at every start until you tick "Don't show this again"; Settings > General shows it again.
  • Review in three columns (findings, page, details) with the whole window, page thumbnails that mark pages with boxes, and a comparison of the original and the redacted preview with a list of the pages that change.
  • Each box can carry its own label (PII, PHI, (B)(6) ...); the copy prints it and the check verifies it.
  • Batch shows real progress with the steps of each file, can be stopped, and ends with a summary; "Review each document" walks through the waiting documents one after the other.
  • Templates come as a gallery by line of work; the rule set editor has "Try it" to see what a rule set finds in a sample text.
  • The watch folder keeps its folders and goes on after a restart, and writes a summary report for each day.
  • RedactFirst icon in the macOS menu bar and the Windows notification area (turn it off in Settings > General).
  • Open files from Finder's Open With, the Dock icon or the Services menu; on Windows from Explorer's Open with or right-click menu, the command line, or a second start.
  • The license page also lists the libraries built into PDFium.
  • Each document opens at its first page with the select tool; Back from a scan or a protected PDF works on Windows.
  • Activating a license no longer sends your computer's name; the activation is listed as "Mac" with a short code.
  • RedactFirst is now available in Spanish, German, French, Portuguese (Brazil) and Turkish. Choose the language in Settings > General; it applies immediately and English stays the default.
  • Dates, times, percentages and numbers follow the chosen language.
  • Reports and the legal documents stay in English, and the app says so where it matters.
  • In narrow windows the page header buttons, the review toolbar and the stamp fields now make room for longer words instead of being cut off.
  • Smoother interface: sections and the review screen slide in, documents slide into the list and fold away when removed (and come back on Undo), statuses cross-fade, and a thin bar shows while a file is being read or saved.
  • Boxes fade between blacked out and kept, the selected box's ring animates, zoom buttons and keys glide, and newly marked boxes pulse once.
  • Dialogs grow in gently; a saved copy shows a short check animation; "Apply without review" shows how far it has got.
  • Messages at the bottom of the window match the app's look in light and dark mode.
  • Turning on Reduce motion in system settings switches all animation off.
  • Resizing the window no longer resets the page you are on.
  • Zoom the pages with −/+ and a zoom menu (Fit width, Fit page, 50–400%), with ⌘+ / ⌘− / ⌘0 / ⌘9, with ⌘ or Ctrl and the scroll wheel around the pointer, or with a trackpad pinch.
  • Keyboard shortcuts now work whenever a document is open and you are not typing in a field; see every shortcut with the keyboard button or ⌘/. On macOS, the menu bar has File, Edit, View and Help menus with the same shortcuts. Toolbar tooltips show their shortcuts.
  • Drawing boxes is now clearly shown: the button stays pressed, a banner says how to stop, and the pages get a colored edge. Pressing Escape while drawing discards the half-drawn box.
  • Settings are grouped into General, Redaction, Templates & updates, License, Privacy & data, Legal and About.
  • New Legal section: read the Privacy Policy, the End User License Agreement and the open-source licenses inside the app.
  • New About section with version and engine versions, how RedactFirst protects your files, and support and security contacts.
  • Smaller, clearer on/off switches. Text fields look editable instead of grayed out.
  • The save dialog shows a live preview of page stamps on the first page, prefills "CONFIDENTIAL", shows problems at the field that needs a change, and says why Save is unavailable.
  • The saved result shows the box count, pages and report name beside the illustration.
  • Refresh the app with a new icon, clearer light and dark colors, and illustrations for getting started and checking results.
  • Choose Automatic, Light, or Dark appearance in Settings. Reopen the welcome guide whenever you need it.
  • Filter documents by review, problem, or saved status. Extra actions now live in menus, and removing a document can be undone.
  • Line up every review checkbox and keep the page usable in small windows and with larger text.
  • Find text before choosing whether to mark all matches. Use the page selector and the selected box's Black out / Keep readable controls while reviewing.
  • Changing the rule set for new documents now leaves existing review decisions alone. Apply it to existing documents with a separate confirmation.
  • Choose a filename and destination before saving, with checks for unsuitable names and existing files. Page stamp controls can be expanded when needed.
  • Add Bates numbers (prefix, start number, digits, position) and a page stamp line to saved copies. Numbers carry on from file to file and from day to day, and you can change the next number when you save.
  • Stamps are checked together with the rest of the copy. The report and the summary report list each file's Bates numbers. RedactFirst refuses to save when a stamp would print a text you are removing.
  • Add a ready-made rule set from a template: law office, medical office, HR, accounting and tax, insurance claims, public records, and schools. Your own rule sets are never changed.
  • New things to find: EIN, ITIN, Medicare numbers, vehicle ID numbers, IP addresses, web addresses, admission/discharge/death dates, and (next to their label) passport, driver's license, medical record, health plan, policy and claim numbers.
  • People's names can now be suggested on macOS ("Person name"); on Windows, names still come from your word list.
  • With a license, RedactFirst can get new and improved templates once a day without an app update. The download is checked for a valid signature first, nothing about you is sent, and you can turn it off in Settings.
  • Reports name the template a rule set started from and its version.
  • New Watch folder page (full version): while RedactFirst is open, new PDFs and scans in a folder you choose are redacted without review into another folder. Files in the watched folder are only read, and each file is done once.
  • Drawing a box on a touch screen no longer scrolls the document.
  • Pages no longer go blank and load again every time you mark, select or change a box.
  • Pages that hold something a reader cannot see (white or off-page text, text in the color of its background, text or pictures covered by a box or cut off by a clip) are now turned into pictures automatically, and the report says they "contained content that is not visible".
  • Pages that keep their text lose the fonts, pictures and other parts they list but do not use.
  • When saving you choose: only pages with redactions become pictures (recommended for most files), or every page does. The report says which was used.
  • A box drawn by hand over text shows what it covers, can mark the other places that text appears, and the check then looks for that text everywhere. Over a picture or scan it says that only the area is checked.
  • Review: undo and redo, zoom from 50% to 400% (fit width, fit page), and keys for working through the boxes (Tab, Shift-Tab, Enter, Backspace, Delete, arrows).
  • Boxes can carry a short label such as "PII" or "REDACTED"; the report records the choice.
  • PNG, JPEG and TIFF scans can be added; they are turned into a PDF first and read with text recognition.
  • A summary report (PDF and JSON) for a whole run: every file with its fingerprints, what was removed, pages turned into pictures, the check result and why any file was held back.
  • Text on pages shown upside down is found by search and suggestions.
  • Values typed into form fields, comment texts and link addresses are searched and suggested too; a box over them covers the whole field or note.
  • Protected PDFs are only unlocked into a temporary copy while they are being read, reviewed or saved; scanned page pictures made for text recognition are deleted as soon as they are read; Settings explains why deleted temporary files are not overwritten.
  • Long lists use much less memory: page text is kept only for the few documents last opened (500 documents: about 50 MB instead of 480 MB).
  • Scanned pages that become pictures are stored about 40 % smaller.
  • Long documents whose pages nearly all became pictures could not be saved (the report did not fit on a page); the report now lists pages as ranges.

0.1.0 (2026-10-13)

  • First internal build. Not released.