Support
Answers to the questions that come up most. If yours is not here, email me — a real person reads it.
Email: admin@vensofts.com
It helps to include your device, the iOS or macOS version, and what you were doing. If a specific PDF misbehaves and you are able to share it, that is the single most useful thing you can send — though never send anything confidential.
Finding details
It missed something
The scan looks for known shapes — account, routing and card numbers, Social Security numbers, IBANs, phone numbers, emails, postal addresses, dates of birth, passport and ID numbers, faces and barcodes. A reference number with no label, or a name it did not recognise, can slip past. Use Find & hide to remove every occurrence of anything you type, or Mark area to drag over anything on the page. Both are removed exactly like the details the scan found.
It flagged something I want to keep
Tap the box on the page, or the switch in the list, to keep it. Names and organisations are left in by default for this reason — a pay stub with the employer blacked out proves nothing.
The boxes on a scan or photo are a little off
On a photographed page the text is recognised from the pixels, so the boxes are estimates and are drawn slightly larger to compensate. Check the copy on the Result screen before sending; use Mark area to cover anything left.
What gets removed
Is the content really gone?
Yes. The characters are deleted from the page's content, pixels are erased from any image underneath, and any note that overlapped is removed; the file is then rewritten from scratch so no earlier version survives inside it. The black box is the last step. Open the copy in another app and try to select or copy the area: there is nothing there. The app's own test suite proves this on every build by reopening prepared copies and inspecting the raw bytes.
What is "hidden data"?
Everything a file carries that is not on the page: title, author, subject, the tool that made it and when, XMP metadata, the private data some editors tuck inside, the author and text of comments, attached files, scripts, and the camera details and GPS position inside embedded photos. "Remove hidden data" strips all of it. Pro shows the itemised list under What's being removed.
Why is the copy flattened?
Flattening draws comments and form fields into the page so they cannot be peeled back off by the recipient. Turn it off on the Prepare screen if you are sending a form for someone else to fill in.
The copy
Where is my original?
Untouched, wherever you opened it from. Blackout never modifies the original; every result is a new file, named after the recipient, that you share or save from the Result screen.
Do my documents get uploaded?
No. Detection, text recognition and face detection run on your device, and the app contains no code that uploads a file. The only thing it talks to the internet for is Apple's subscription check, which knows nothing about your documents — see the privacy policy.
A password-protected PDF will not open
Enter its password when prompted. If you do not have it, the document cannot be opened — the password is what encrypts it, and there is no way around that.
The Word copy lost the layout
Word is a flowing document and a PDF is a fixed page. Paragraphs, headings, tables and pictures are rebuilt; exact positions are not. The details are removed before the conversion, never after, so the Word copy carries nothing the PDF copy does not.
Purchases
What is free, and what does Pro unlock?
The whole job — find, review, remove, strip hidden data, watermark and share — is free for three copies a month. Pro removes the limit and adds password protection, the itemised hidden-data report, and the optional steps: page selection, combining and splitting, stamps, headers, page numbers, signing, notes, corrections, and sending as Word, Excel, PowerPoint or images.
I bought Pro but it is locked
Tap Restore Purchases on the purchase screen, and check you are signed in with the same Apple Account you bought with. Purchases are tied to that account, not to the device.
Is it a subscription?
Yes — Blackout Pro is US$9.99 per year and renews automatically until you cancel. Cancel any time in Settings ▸ your name ▸ Subscriptions on iPhone and iPad, or App Store ▸ your name ▸ Account Settings on Mac; you keep Pro until the period you have paid for runs out. The free allowance stays whether you subscribe or not, and Family Sharing is supported. Full terms are on the terms page.
How do I cancel?
Open Settings in the app and tap Manage Subscription, which takes you to Apple's subscription list. We cannot cancel it for you — only Apple can, because only Apple holds the billing relationship.
Refunds
Purchases go through Apple, so refunds do too: reportaproblem.apple.com. Do email first if something is not working — a fix is usually quicker.
Accessibility
The app supports VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, Dark Mode and full keyboard navigation on Mac. Read it back uses the system voice and works offline. If something is hard to use with assistive technology, please tell me — those reports get priority.