Frequently Asked Questions

No. Parsing, detection, and redaction all run on your own machine — file content is never uploaded. Only license verification and (optional, can be turned off) anonymous usage statistics ever talk to the network.

Yes. Restoration uses a mapping table saved locally with the workspace — it stays on your machine and only you can reverse the redaction. The mapping is per-workspace, so one workspace's mapping cannot restore another's files.

Yes. Anonymous usage statistics can be turned off at any time in Settings.

Dragging a file in is a one-shot job: you process one, you export one. A secure sync folder is ongoing: you point Dimkey at a folder and it keeps watching — new and changed files are redacted into the copy automatically, and changes inside the copy come back as real data. This is the mode for handing a whole project directory to an AI tool.

No. Dimkey never writes to your originals on its own. Anything AI edited is converted back to real data and placed in <your folder>/Restored/. Once you've looked at it you can hit Replace original to promote the new version — the old one goes to the system Trash, so you can undo. If you don't, nothing happens.

By default under Dimkey Safe Copy/<your folder name>; the full path is shown for confirmation before anything is created. The copy holds full files with redacted content, so it takes up roughly as much space as the original folder. If you delete the sync folder, the copy and the restored files stay on disk for you to remove yourself.

Yes. Closing the window just tucks it into the system tray; syncing keeps running in the background. To stop it, choose Pause auto-sync from the tray menu. There's also a launch-at-login switch, off by default.

Auto-sync redacts xlsx, xls, csv, tsv, docx and txt. Anything else — PDF included — is neither redacted nor copied, and Dimkey lists what it skipped in the sync summary. PDFs go through the one-file-at-a-time flow for now; legacy formats like .doc are fine once you save them as .docx.

Yes. Markdown, JSON, log, XML, YAML and HTML files that AI writes into the copy get their redaction placeholders swapped back to real data, and land in Restored/. Agents write their reports in markdown most of the time, so this path matters.

Any of them. What Dimkey produces is an ordinary local folder, so any AI tool that can read and write local files works — agents that operate on folders directly, like Claude Cowork, Claude Code or WorkBuddy, are the typical case. Give it the copy's path and everything it reads is already redacted.

It automatically detects 21 types, including phone numbers, ID card numbers, bank card numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, person names, organization names, credit cards, SSN, passport numbers, and IBAN.

Six formats: xlsx, xls, csv, docx, pdf, and txt. You can also paste text directly without saving it as a file first.

Three: Mask (e.g. 138****1234), Fake data (replace with realistic fake values), and Generalize (e.g. Chaoyang District → Beijing).

Add your own terms to the custom dictionary. It supports exact and fuzzy matching, and they'll be detected automatically from then on.

Yes. Files are exported in their original format — Excel stays Excel, PDF stays PDF — with the layout preserved.

Yes. Import multiple files at once and either confirm each one or apply a single configuration to run them all automatically, with a progress indicator.

macOS 11 and later, and Windows 10 and later.

$29 worldwide (card / PayPal) or ¥199 in mainland China (WeChat Pay). Both are completed over email with support, who reply within one business day. See the purchase page for details.

One license can be bound to up to 3 devices. When you switch computers, unbind an old device from the device list to free up a slot.

On first launch you automatically enter a 30-day trial with full functionality; the interface shows the remaining days.

After activation there's an offline grace period — you can keep using it without a connection for a while, and just need to verify online once before it expires. If you lose your license key, recover it using the email you activated with.