Privacy
Your files are read in the tab you have open and stay on the machine you are sitting at. Nothing you open is uploaded anywhere.
About twelve seconds after a page loads, your browser also saves a copy of Olbo’s own files from olbo.app, so the tools work offline next time. Those requests bring Olbo to you, and none of them carries a file of yours.
Buying a licence is the one page here that talks to anything. Your email address and your card details go to Stripe, who take the payment and send you a receipt. The card fields are Stripe’s own, running in their iframe, so the number never reaches this site. If a copy of your licence key is emailed to you afterwards, your address goes to the company that sends it: Brevo, or Resend when Brevo cannot.
The desktop app talks to one other place, and only when you press its version number: downloads.olbo.app, to ask whether there is a newer Olbo. Nothing you have opened goes with the question.
Your browser keeps three things for you: the licence key, whether you chose the light or the dark theme, and a copy of whatever you are working on so a tab closed by accident costs you nothing. All of it sits in this browser’s own storage, and the bin in the top bar deletes the copies whenever you want them gone.
Olbo is software running on your own computer, and software misses things. Read what comes out before you send it to anybody.
Questions people ask
- Does Olbo upload my file anywhere?
- No. Olbo reads your file in the tab you have open, using code already on your computer, and there is no server behind it to upload anything to. Closing the tab does not take it off your machine, though: a copy of what you are working on is kept in this browser's own storage, so that a tab closed by accident costs you nothing. The bin in the top bar deletes those copies whenever you want them gone.
- Does the Redactor leave the original on my machine?
- Yes. So that a tab closed by accident does not cost you the work, the Redactor keeps a copy of the document as you opened it, before anything was covered over, in this browser's own storage. A PDF is the exception: nothing of one is kept. None of it is uploaded, and Start over or the bin in the top bar deletes it.
- What personal data can Olbo find?
- Olbo redacts personal information and other sensitive data: emails, phone numbers, US Social Security numbers, card numbers, bank details, ID numbers, postal addresses and dates of birth. It looks for all of those from the moment a file opens. It also finds API keys, access tokens, private key blocks and IP addresses, so a log or a .env can be cleaned before you share it. People's names and web addresses it will find too, but only once you tick Names or Web addresses in the toolbar: a name has no shape to check the way a card number has, so covering one is offered rather than assumed. Anything else you spot, you can highlight and cover over yourself.
- Can I change what Olbo decided?
- Yes. Everything it changed is shown where it sits, and one click puts any of it back. You can retype a value by hand, or highlight something it missed and cover that instead. What you download is what is on your screen.
- Do I need an account?
- No. Olbo has no accounts. Every tool opens files and saves them without one, and there is no sign-up form anywhere on the site.
- Is Olbo safe to use with confidential data?
- Yes, in the sense that matters most: the file is redacted without uploading it. It is read on the machine you are sitting at, by code already on your computer, and no copy is sent anywhere. It is still software, so read what comes out before you send it on.