| Detail | In the original | In your copy |
|---|---|---|
| Location | 48.20849 N, 16.37208 E | Removed |
| Phone | Google Pixel 8 Pro | Removed |
| Taken | 12 Mar 2024, 14:03:11 | Removed |
PDFs, photos and emails · Android and web
Share the file, not the person.
Inkonym finds names, birth dates, addresses and account numbers in PDFs, photos, emails and text files, covers them for good, and strips the hidden details a file carries along, before you share it with anyone or ask an AI about it. All of it happens on your device.
Works offline. Files never leave the device.
Best effort, not a guarantee: Inkonym can miss things, so check every copy yourself before you share it. What it can’t promise
What Inkonym promises
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Nothing is uploaded
Files are opened and processed on your device. The app makes no network requests.
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No account, no tracking
No sign-up, no analytics, no crash reports and no ads in the app.
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The original stays as it is
You get a copy, and it is saved only when you ask for it.
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The copy is checked
Inkonym reads it back before it calls the job done.
01How it works
Find, review, remove.
People share documents all the time: a lab result for a second opinion, a payslip for a flat application, a screenshot for a support ticket, a scanned contract. Most of the time only part of it is anyone's business. Inkonym takes the rest out in three steps, all on your device.
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Find
Open a PDF, a photo, an email or a text file. Inkonym reads its text, using on-device text recognition for scans and photos, then looks for your own terms and for names, dates, contact details, addresses and ID numbers.
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Review
Everything it found is marked on the page in the colour of its kind, with a reason in words and how sure it is. Tick or untick each finding, search for more, or draw a box over what detection can't see.
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Remove
Pages with something removed are turned into images with the black boxes burnt in, so the text underneath is gone, not hidden. Hidden details are stripped, and the copy is read back and checked.
02What it finds
Every kind has a colour, an icon and a name.
Switch each kind on or off. Scans and photos are first read with text recognition on your device, in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.
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Names
People's names after a label like "Patient:", after a title or in a greeting, in a signature line, and common first names.
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Dates
Dates in their many spellings. A date after "Date of birth" counts as a birth date; other dates come up as "Maybe".
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Contact details
Email addresses and phone numbers, web links, social profiles and @handles.
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Addresses
Postal addresses and postcodes, and map coordinates.
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ID & account numbers
IBANs and card numbers, national ID, tax and insurance numbers, the machine-readable lines of a passport, and IP addresses.
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Your terms
Anything you list, as plain text or as a regular expression. Inkonym also looks for other spellings and for each part of a name.
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Drawn by you
What detection can't see: faces, signatures, handwriting, stamps. Draw a box over it and it is removed like everything else.
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How sure it is
Every finding says why it was found and how sure Inkonym is. Clear matches start out ticked and maybes don't; what starts out ticked is a setting.
Clear matchLikelyMaybe
04Before you ask an AI
Let the AI read the file, not who it's about.
More and more people hand letters, lab results, payslips and contracts to AI chatbots and assistants to explain, summarise or translate them. An upload sends the whole file, with every name, number and hidden detail in it. Black those out first: the AI still gets everything it needs to help.
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It leaves your device
An uploaded file goes to the service's servers with everything in it, including the hidden details you never see on the page.
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It may be kept
Depending on the service and your settings, chats and files can be stored, looked at by staff for safety or quality checks, or used to train future models. Read the terms of the service you use.
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It can't be taken back
Deleting a chat later doesn't undo what may already have been stored, logged or reviewed. The safe moment is before you send.
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Photos say more than they show
A phone photo of a letter can also carry where it was taken and which phone took it. Inkonym strips that along with the names.
Inkonym works before the upload
It runs entirely on your device, so the anonymizing itself sends nothing anywhere. The only thing an AI service ever sees is the copy you decide to give it.
05Honest limits
What Inkonym can't promise.
It finds a lot, not everything. That is why every finding is shown to you, and why the last look before you share is yours.
Best effort, not a guarantee
Inkonym does its best to find and remove personal details, but it can miss some: in the text, in pictures and in hidden details. Until you have looked through every page of the copy yourself, treat it as a draft. Whatever is still readable in it when you share it is shared.
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Detection can be wrong
It can miss things, and it can mark things that aren't personal. Go through every page, tick and untick, and search for anything it didn't find.
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Text recognition can misread
Poor scans, faint print and handwriting can be read wrongly or not at all. Draw a box over anything you want gone.
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Faces and signatures need you
Inkonym doesn't recognise faces, signatures, handwriting or stamps by itself. You draw a box over them.
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Flattened pages are pictures
Their text can no longer be selected or searched. Pages with nothing removed keep their text, unless you choose to flatten every page.
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The last look is yours
Check the copy before you share it. You decide what you share, and you stay responsible for it.
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A tool, not a guarantee
Inkonym is not legal advice, and it can't guarantee that a document is anonymous.
06Questions
Questions and answers.
Are my files uploaded anywhere?
No. Inkonym opens your files and processes them in your device's memory. Its text recognition and PDF engines, and the language data they use, are part of the app, so it has no reason to go online: the Android app doesn't even ask for permission to use the internet, and the web app may only talk to the address it was loaded from.
Do I need an internet connection?
Not to anonymize a file: all of that happens on your device. You need one to install the Android app, or to open the web app in your browser.
Should I anonymize a file before I give it to an AI chatbot?
If it is about you or someone else, yes. Whatever you upload to an AI service leaves your device, and depending on the service it may be stored, reviewed or used for training. Most questions don't need the names: "what do these lab values mean?" can be answered just as well with the patient's name, birth date and address blacked out. Inkonym does that on your device, before anything is sent.
What happens to the original file?
Nothing. Inkonym never changes the original. It makes an anonymized copy, and saves it only when you ask.
Where is the anonymized copy saved?
In the browser it is downloaded like any other file. On Android it goes into the Documents/Inkonym folder, or you hand it straight to another app through the share sheet, and that app receives the copy.
Can someone remove the black boxes?
Not from the copy Inkonym saves. A page with something removed is turned into an image with the boxes burnt in, so the text underneath is gone, not hidden, and Inkonym reads the copy back to check that none of it is left. Pages with nothing removed keep their text, unless you choose to flatten every page.
What does Inkonym keep on my device?
Your settings, and your terms unless you switch off "Remember my terms"; then they are forgotten when the app closes. Both stay on the device: on Android they are left out of cloud backups and of transfers to a new phone. Clearing the app's data or uninstalling it removes both. Your files are not kept.
Which files and languages can it read?
PDFs, images (photos, scans and screenshots), emails saved as .eml files, and plain text files. Text in scans and photos is read by text recognition on your device, in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. An email’s copy keeps only From, To, Cc, the date, the subject and the text; the rest of its headers and its attachments are left out.
Can it find faces or signatures?
Not by itself: Inkonym looks for text. Draw a box over a face, a signature, handwriting or a stamp, and it is removed like everything else.
Does this website track me?
This website counts visits with Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and cannot recognise you from one day to the next. That is the website only: the Inkonym app collects nothing.
Is the copy guaranteed to be anonymous?
No. Inkonym works on a best-effort basis: it shows you everything it found, removes what you choose and checks the copy, but detection can miss names, numbers or whole passages, and text recognition can misread a scan. Always look through every page of the copy yourself before you share it.
Ink for the parts that are nobody else's business.
Inkonym is coming to Android and to your browser. Both work the same way: on your device, without an account.
- Android From Google Play Coming soon
- Web app Runs in your browser, nothing to install Coming soon
No account · No ads · No tracking in the app