Rollcall ResearchPhilter Desktop redacts documents. This redacts what you're about to paste.
Both run offline on Windows and neither uploads your data. They solve different halves of the problem, and if your half is a file that needs cleaning before you send it, Philter Desktop is the better tool.
Short answer: use Philter Desktop for files and Payroll Data Shield for the copy-paste into an AI chat. Philter is free for personal and evaluation use, open source under Apache, and handles PDF, DOCX, XLSX, CSV, TXT, RTF, EML and MSG, including scanned PDFs via on-device OCR. Payroll Data Shield doesn't open files at all; it scrubs copied text and restores the real values in the AI's reply.
We also wrote a longer piece on the same two tools: Philter Desktop vs Payroll Data Shield, which explains why redaction alone breaks the AI workflow.
Side by side
| Philter Desktop | Payroll Data Shield | |
|---|---|---|
| What it redacts | Document files: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, CSV, TXT, RTF, EML, MSG, plus scanned PDFs by OCR | Free text you've copied, the thing about to go into a chat box |
| Where it fits | Before a file leaves your machine for a person | Before text leaves your machine for an AI |
| Restore afterwards | No. Redaction writes a new copy, and PDFs are flattened to an image so nothing is recoverable | Yes. Unscrub puts the real values back into the AI's reply |
| Price | Free for personal and evaluation use; $100 per user per year commercial | £12.99 once, no subscription, commercial use included |
| Licence | Apache open source; commercial use needs their commercial agreement | Detection core is MIT open source (pii-redact); the desktop app is the paid part |
| UK fields | General PII model | NI numbers, UK postcodes and UK mobile formats out of the box |
| Your own terms | Configurable redaction policies | A local terms list of client and business names, matched longest-first |
| Platform | Windows 10 (1809+) and 11, 64-bit, Intel and ARM | Windows |
Philter Desktop details taken from philterd.ai, September 2026. Check there for current pricing.
Which one fits
Pick Philter Desktop if…
You have files to clean: court filings, discovery bundles, a spreadsheet going to a third party, a scanned PDF. It does that properly, offline, and you can audit the source.
Pick Payroll Data Shield if…
Your problem is the copy-paste into ChatGPT or Claude, ten times a day, and you need the answer to come back with the real names and numbers in it. A one-way document redactor can't complete that loop.
Nothing stops you running both. They don't overlap: one cleans files you send to people, the other cleans text you send to a model.
Questions
Is there a Philter Desktop alternative for redacting text before pasting into ChatGPT?
Philter Desktop redacts document files such as PDF, DOCX and XLSX, not text you have copied. For the paste-into-an-AI workflow, Payroll Data Shield scrubs the text first and then restores the real values into the AI's reply, which a one-way document redactor cannot do.
Is Philter Desktop free?
It is free for personal and evaluation use and open source under the Apache licence. Commercial use is 100 US dollars per user per year under Philterd's commercial licence.
Can Philter Desktop undo a redaction?
No. It writes a new redacted copy, and PDFs are flattened to an image so there is no recoverable text underneath. That is right for sharing a document, but it means it cannot restore values into an AI's reply.
Get Payroll Data Shield, £12.99 once Try the free demo first
Independent comparison by the maker of Payroll Data Shield. Not affiliated with Philter Desktop.