Data

Tools

Indexes

Applications

Experiments

Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

https://github.com/philterd/philterdesktop

Philter app for Windows
https://github.com/philterd/philterdesktop

anonymization anonymize deidentify docx pdf phi pii redact redaction text windows

Last synced: 8 days ago
JSON representation

Philter app for Windows

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
# Philter Desktop



A Windows desktop application for redacting personally identifiable information (PII) from

plain text (`.txt`), Microsoft Word (`.docx`), and PDF (`.pdf`) documents.



![build-and-test](https://github.com/philterd/PhilterDesktop/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)



![Philter Desktop main window](images/main-form.png)



## Get Philter Desktop



Philter Desktop is a **commercial product** from Philterd. The **official, signed build — with

support — is a per-user subscription** (currently **$100 per user, per year**), provided to

subscribers from **[philterd.ai](https://www.philterd.ai)** (it installs cleanly, with no Windows

SmartScreen warning).



Its **source code is free and open source** under the Apache License 2.0 — you (or your IT

department) can inspect exactly what it does, confirm it works entirely on your own machine and never

sends your documents anywhere, and [build and run your own copy](#building-from-source) under that

license. **This repository hosts the source code, not ready-made installers** — the official build is

provided to subscribers from Philterd.



> *Philter* is a trademark of Philterd, LLC; Philterd's official builds are distributed under the

> Philter brand.



## Building from source



### Prerequisites



- .NET 10.0 SDK or later

- Windows 10/11

- Visual Studio 2022 (17.12 or later) — optional; the CLI is sufficient



The redaction engine ([Phileas](https://github.com/philterd/phileas-net)) is consumed as the

`Philterd.Phileas` NuGet package, so no separate clone or build is required.



### Building



```bash

git clone https://github.com/philterd/PhilterDesktop

cd PhilterDesktop

dotnet build PhilterDesktop.slnx

```



`PhilterDesktop.slnx` contains two projects:



- **PhilterDesktop** — the WinForms application (UI, data access, redaction, and the policy editor)

- **PhilterDesktop.Tests** — the xUnit test suite



To build the distributable **setup installer**, see [`Installer/README.md`](Installer/README.md).



### Running



- Press F5 in Visual Studio, or

- Run from the command line:

  ```bash

  dotnet run --project PhilterDesktop/PhilterDesktop.csproj

  ```



Word (`.docx`) redaction uses the open-source [Open XML SDK](https://github.com/dotnet/Open-XML-SDK)

— no license key or third-party component is required. All supported formats (`.txt`, `.docx`,

`.pdf`) redact out of the box.



## Features



- **Redaction queue** — add `.txt`/`.docx`/`.pdf` files (button or drag-and-drop); they are

  redacted in the background with live, color-coded status. PDF redaction is image-based (the

  output has no recoverable text layer).

- **Policy editor** — enable PII filters and configure their replacement strategies. Filters are

  discovered automatically from the Phileas model and grouped by category (Personal, Contact,

  Location, Financial, Identifiers, Technical, Medical, …), with a search box and an

  enabled-count indicator.

- **On-device name detection** — an optional **AI Detection → Names** filter uses a bundled

  [PhEye](https://github.com/philterd/phileas-net) GLiNER model to find person names contextually,

  running entirely on the machine with no network call. The model is downloaded at build time and

  shipped inside the installer (see [Bundled models](PhilterDesktop/Models/README.md)).

- **Highlight redactions** — optionally highlight the replacement text in redacted Word (`.docx`)

  documents for clearer visual review (a per-document option on the Redact Documents form).

- **Watched folders** — monitor folders for new `.txt`/`.docx`/`.pdf` files and redact them

  automatically to an output folder, each with its own policy, context, and highlight option

  (configured on the **Watched Folder** tab of Settings). Philter Desktop runs in the **system

  tray** (closing the window keeps it watching) and can **start at sign-in**.

- **Contexts** — manage redaction contexts for consistent replacement.

- **View Diff** — right-click a completed document → **View Diff…** to compare the original and the

  redacted output: a color-coded line diff for `.txt`, or a side-by-side page view for `.pdf`.

- **Passphrase protection** — optionally require a passphrase to open the encrypted database

  (**Settings → Security**); the key is re-wrapped, so toggling never re-encrypts the database.

- **Command-line redaction** — redact files headlessly for scripting/automation:

  `PhilterDesktop.exe /p mypolicy /c mycontext file1.pdf file2.pdf` (policy/context optional,

  defaulting to the default policy/context). Works even while the app is running.

- **Explorer right-click menu** — an optional **"Redact with Philter Desktop"** context-menu entry

  for `.pdf`/`.docx`/`.txt` files (toggled in Settings). Right-clicking files opens a dialog to pick

  the policy/context and adds them to the redaction queue; a multi-file selection opens one dialog.

- **Settings** — output location, logging, and the redaction policy defaults.



Each filter supports multiple replacement strategies:



- **Redaction** — replace with a format string (e.g., `{{{REDACTED-%t}}}`)

- **Static replacement** — replace with fixed text

- **Random replacement** — replace with a randomly generated value

- **Conditional filtering** — apply a strategy only when a condition is met

- **Scope control** — document-level or context-level replacement



## Testing



```bash

dotnet test PhilterDesktop.Tests/PhilterDesktop.Tests.csproj

```



The suite covers the data layer (LiteDB repositories), the redaction service, Word redaction

(via the Open XML SDK — no license needed, so these always run), the editor↔engine policy

contract, and form construction smoke tests. On-device name-detection tests are skipped when the

PhEye model is not bundled.

The same build-and-test flow runs in CI on every push and pull request

(`.github/workflows/ci.yml`).



### Testing before release



Before publishing a release, run the manual checklist in [`RELEASE_TESTING.md`](RELEASE_TESTING.md): it

covers installing on a clean Windows machine and smoke-testing the app. Most of the functional

verification is automated by the built-in self-test — run it against the installed (or built) binary:



```

PhilterDesktop.exe --selftest

```



It redacts a small built-in corpus (generated at runtime — nothing is bundled) across every supported

text-based format and verifies each output is free of residual PII, printing `Result: PASS (n/n)` and

exiting `0` on success. PDF is not covered by the self-test and is checked manually per the checklist.



`PhilterDesktop.exe --smoketest` is a separate release check that confirms the bundled license agreement

(`philterd-eula.txt`, refreshed by the installer build) still matches the live copy at

`https://philterd.ai/philterd-eula.txt` (requires network); it exits `0` on a match.



## License



The **source code** is open source under the **Apache License, Version 2.0** — you may inspect,

modify, and build it under that license. See [`LICENSE`](LICENSE) for the full text.



The **official Philter Desktop product** — the signed, maintained build and the support that comes

with it — is a paid **per-user subscription** from Philterd, provided to subscribers under the

Philterd Commercial License Agreement (see [Get Philter Desktop](#get-philter-desktop) and

[philterd.ai](https://www.philterd.ai)). That agreement covers the official product and does not limit

your rights in the open-source code under the Apache license. ***Philter*** is a trademark of

Philterd, LLC; the Apache license does not grant permission to use that mark for redistributed builds.



Copyright 2026 Philterd, LLC.