SureRedact 1.2.0 release notes

SureRedact 1.2.0 replaces 1.1.0 on Windows and 1.0.1 on the Mac — on the Mac it is the first update since 1.0.1 — and every 1.2 release candidate.

What’s new in 1.2 lists the largest changes since 1.1, and Known issues what is not yet right. If you used an earlier version lists the fixes that cannot reach back into work already done.

Before you start

Check which version you have. The app’s header reads v1.2.0, and Settings says the same; while you are reviewing, it sits beside the Matter’s name. Please quote it in every report.
Your documents stay on your computer. SureRedact does all of its work locally. Its own code sends nothing but an error report, which you can switch off. The window it runs in is the operating system’s web view — Microsoft Edge WebView2 on Windows, WebKit on macOS — a component Microsoft or Apple updates, which can contact its maker on its own. SureRedact switches off the WebView2 features that do, hands the web view nothing of yours, and checks before every release that the window makes no connection beyond your machine.
The error report carries no message text at all — only the type of error, where in our code it happened, the app version and your operating system. No file names, no document contents, no names of people, and nothing at all when the app is working normally. It is on by default: you choose on first launch, and can change it any time in Settings → Privacy.
Importing thousands of files? SureRedact 1.2 shows you how far it has got — see Before a large import, below, for what to expect and how long it takes.

Download and check

	File	SHA-256
macOS	`SureRedact-1.2.0-macos.zip` (about 79 MB)	`873c20e2e18a750085c27acb1b98bc8c50e442b905c357981fb82a943709694a`
Windows	`SureRedact-Setup-1.2.0-windows-x64.exe` (about 67 MB)	`49c3db05b120063e2ef03232029a4f2d07d1c4273d53969e6226fe6142930aa0`

To confirm your download is the file above, compare its SHA-256 with the table:

macOS, in Terminal: shasum -a 256 SureRedact-1.2.0-macos.zip
Windows, in PowerShell: Get-FileHash .\SureRedact-Setup-1.2.0-windows-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Install

macOS — Apple silicon, macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later

⚠ Upgrading from 1.0.0 or 1.0.1? Finish its Matters first. 1.0.0 and 1.0.1 kept their Matters in a form 1.2 does not read: a Matter made in either does not appear in 1.2.0, and a backup made in either cannot be restored in it. Finish those Matters in 1.0.x before you upgrade. Upgrading removes nothing: they stay on your Mac as 1.0.x left them.

SureRedact runs on Macs with Apple silicon (M-series chips) only. It will not open on an Intel Mac.

Double-click the zip to unpack it.
Drag SureRedact into Applications, replacing the copy you have.
Open it. It is signed and notarised by Apple, so it opens normally; macOS may ask you to confirm opening an app downloaded from the internet.

Matters made in a 1.2 release candidate are kept. Back up any Matter that matters to you first, with Backup in its toolbar — we have not tested opening a Matter in an older version after it has been opened in 1.2. Above all, don’t take a Matter back to an earlier version once you have excluded a document in it: the release candidates before rc10 know nothing of exclusions, and would treat the document as part of the disclosure. Don’t restore a backup made with 1.2.0 in an earlier version.

Windows — 64-bit

Close SureRedact if it is running.
Run SureRedact-Setup-1.2.0-windows-x64.exe. It is signed by SureMatters Ltd, so Windows names the publisher rather than warning about an unknown one. By default it installs for your user account only, without administrator rights. Setup says so and asks before replacing the version you have. It removes that version’s program files before it installs 1.2.0’s, so nothing of the old version is left to load. Your Matters, your licence and your settings are not among them and are not touched.
To remove it later: Windows Settings → Apps, then SureRedact 1.2.0.

What’s new in 1.2

A selection of what changed since 1.1 — on the Mac, since 1.0.1 — with the largest changes first. Items marked (Professional) need a Professional licence. Professional also opens Matters prepared in SurePrepare, and imports Office, image and text files by converting them to PDF; both editions import PDFs and email messages from a local folder.

Select similar (Professional)

Box a name or a number once, and Select similar searches the rest of the document for the same text. In 1.2 the results stay together as a group you can work with:

a group card with Redact all, Keep all, Undo all and Dismiss all;
a Select similar view showing just the group: the rest of the page dims, a label says the view is filtered, and Tab moves through the group’s boxes;
a decision on the first box (the origin) is followed by the matches you have not decided yourself;
while its group still has matches, the origin stays on its text and cannot start a second group;
SureRedact asks before you dismiss a match (it can’t be brought back while its group is in use) or give one a different decision from its group;
a match can be set apart to be decided on its own, and put back.

Reviewing

Keyboard: every dialog takes the keyboard’s focus and keeps Tab inside it, and Esc cancels it. Press ? in the reviewer for every shortcut.
o goes to the next page that still needs your review.
Marking a whole document done names any pages you haven’t opened before it goes ahead.
Re-running detection no longer adds a second box on top of every finding. Where a detector disagrees with a decision you have made, it flags your box instead of changing it.
SureRedact shows which pages have changed since a document was last redacted.
A Matter whose original files have moved says so. If you move, rename or unmount the folder a Matter was built from, the reviewer names the file and tells you it has moved, the document list marks it, and Redact is blocked — instead of failing to draw the page with a message that sounded like a corrupt document.
Detection shows its progress (“detecting — 12 of 67 documents”). Quitting the app mid-detection no longer leaves the Matter stuck, and Recover re-runs the detectors you chose.
The redacted preview opens showing the whole page.
Dark mode is easier to read: stronger contrast, visible focus rings, and the current page and document are clearly marked.

Detection

Scanned pages are read on every computer. SureRedact now carries its own text reader, so detection and Select similar read the text of a scanned page on any Mac or Windows computer it is installed on. Earlier versions relied on a reader being installed separately: on a Mac it was never found, and on Windows only where one had been installed. Settings shows the reader beside the version — “Text reader: bundled 5.5.1, working” — and please quote that line when you report a problem with a scanned page.
Phone numbers are boxed at their own width, not the whole line’s.
Phone numbers and email addresses are found even in PDFs whose text layer has lost a separator.
Name columns in tables are recognised from their header and their contents, and columns that look like names but were not scanned are listed. (Professional)
Postcodes repeated on a page are boxed at every occurrence, and a postcode inside an address in a table is covered by the address’s box. (Professional)
Every edition shows a coverage statement: what was, and was not, automatically scanned — never what was found. In a Professional disclosure pack where every detector ran on every document, the README’s Detection coverage reads:

The documents were scanned automatically for signatures, emails, phone numbers, credentials and UK postcodes. Names and full addresses were scanned for automatically in structured tables and CSV files only; the free-text body of letters and other prose was not scanned for them. Dates of birth were scanned for automatically in tables and CSV files, and in text where a date-of-birth label precedes them; dates without such a label were not scanned for. The operator made the final decision on every redaction.

Outputs and export

(Free) Redacted PDFs and the audit summary are saved in Documents / SureRedact / Matter name. Earlier versions are kept in a previous-versions folder instead of being overwritten, two Matters with the same name each get a folder of their own, and SureRedact warns you if the files there are out of date or incomplete. Each folder holds a small hidden file, .sureredact-matter, recording which Matter it belongs to — please leave it in place.
(Professional) The disclosure pack no longer includes the unredacted originals, never names files that were excluded, contains no paths from your computer, and states its times in UTC. Its decisions log carries your reasons and tags.
The audit summary lists files by name only, with no paths from your computer.
Deleting a Matter removes its redacted outputs and everything else SureRedact kept for it, and the confirmation says exactly what will happen.

Matters and licences

(Free) Free reads email messages — .eml and .msg — as well as PDFs.
Install a Professional licence from Settings → Choose licence file.
The Matters list shows the right Active and Archived counts, and Show all when there are more Matters than fit.
Creating a Matter is steadier. Deleting a Matter while it is still being created no longer breaks the app, and creating one no longer holds a lock that could make other actions report “database is locked”.
(Windows) Setup asks before replacing an existing installation, checks that SureRedact isn’t running, and replaces the previous version’s program files whole.
A Matter’s name and description can be edited from its card.

Known issues

Faux-bold text can be missed. Where a document draws text twice in the same place to make it look bold (some report and mail-merge tools do this), the automatic detectors can miss that line altogether, and the page still reads as scanned. Check bold-looking lines by eye. A fix is planned after 1.2.
On a scanned page, the reading is only as good as the scan. The text reader can misread a character — a 0 as an O — leave an email address unfound, or, rarely, box only part of one; and it can take a line of ordinary prose for a table, so a word that starts a line may be offered as a name. Check that each box on a scanned page covers the whole of what it should, look for what it missed, and dismiss what is not a name. A fix for the part-boxed address is planned for a later 1.2 release.
A page that mixes real text with a picture of text is read only for its real text. Where a document’s body is a picture under typed headings, or its text is drawn as shapes rather than typed, the automatic detectors and Select similar do not read that part, and the page still reads as scanned — in every version of SureRedact, not only 1.2.0. The coverage statement counts such a page as scanned. Check such pages by eye, and treat the picture as unscanned. A fix is planned for a later 1.2 release.
Names and full addresses in letters and prose are not auto-detected. They are detected in structured tables and CSV files only (Professional); UK postcodes are found in all text, and dates of birth in tables, CSV files and after a date-of-birth label. The reviewer says what was scanned on every page.
After an upgrade from Free, a Matter detected on Free is not scanned for names, addresses, dates of birth or postcodes. Detect counts those documents as already done, so the Professional detectors do not run on them; the header and Export’s confirmation say so. Check names, addresses, dates of birth and postcodes yourself, or create the Matter again on Professional and run Detect. The disclosure pack is not affected: its coverage statement says what actually ran. A fix is planned for a later 1.2 release. (Professional)
On Windows, a SurePrepare handoff into an open SureRedact never reaches it. The second copy finds SureRedact running and says it can’t start. Close SureRedact first, or use New Matter → SurePrepare Matter. A fix is planned for a later 1.2 release.
With the candidate panel folded, the reason box on the card beside a box can refuse a click when the card sits low on the screen: the card moves as the box takes focus, and the click lands elsewhere. Press Tab within the card to reach the box, or show the panel (Ctrl+\, ⌘+\ on a Mac). A fix is planned for a later 1.2 release.
On a redacted document, a box drawn at the very foot of a page can end up just below the page area. The first change to such a document adds a line above the page saying how many pages changed, which makes the page area shorter. Scroll down a little to see the box. A fix is planned for a later 1.2 release.
A Select similar group’s filter label can hide a box at the top of a page. In a group’s filtered view, the label over the page’s top-left corner can sit over a box in the page’s first rows, while its card shows beside it. A fix is planned for a later 1.2 release. (Professional)
A postcode split across two lines shows as two candidates, one per line. Give both the same decision. (Professional)
A decision made for a whole group is logged box by box. In audit/decisions.jsonl, one decision made with Redact all on a group of 95 matches reads as 96 decisions rather than one decision carried to 95 copies. Every line is accurate about its own box; what the log does not yet say is which lines came from one action. We plan to say so in a later 1.2 release. (Professional)
A Select similar result’s card stays in the right-hand panel while you page through the boxes it created, and its buttons sit below the boxes rather than above them. A redesign is planned for a later 1.2 release. (A result that created nothing — a refusal, or a search that found no match — now clears when you select another box; that was the confusing half.) (Professional)
Select similar reads a page’s own text, not pictures of text. On a page whose body is a picture under typed headings, or whose text is drawn as shapes, a box over the picture is refused with “Couldn’t read any text in this selection”, and a box over the one typed occurrence finds no others. This is the case reported during testing, now diagnosed — see A page that mixes real text with a picture of text, above. A fix is planned for a later 1.2 release. If it happens on a page whose text is typed, tell us which document. (Professional)
The Windows build carries Python 3.11.9; 1.2.1 brings both platforms to 3.11.16. (Windows)

Before a large import

Creating a Matter from a large folder takes a while, but SureRedact 1.2 tells you how far it has got, and does the work in the background.

What you will see. Create Matter answers at once, and the Matter appears on the list reading Creating, with n of m files as it goes. Its own view shows that progress rather than a blank “Loading matter…”. A warning stays in the interface for as long as any Matter is being created, on every screen, asking you to keep the computer on and awake and SureRedact open. SureRedact also stops the computer sleeping on its own while it works. Detection, if you chose it in the dialog, starts itself when creation finishes, and shows its own progress (“detecting — 12 of 67 documents”).
How long. On our Windows test laptop, a folder of 10,032 mixed files was ready in about ten minutes, and Create Matter answered in under a second rather than after the whole import. Just over half were PDFs; the rest were mostly Word documents, spreadsheets and images, over 4,000 of which needed converting to PDF. The time grows in step with the number of files. Yours will differ: a slower computer, more files to convert, large spreadsheets, or other work running at the same time — detection in another Matter, for example — will all lengthen it. Most of what remains is converting Office files one at a time, which we plan to spread across processor cores in a later 1.2 release.
Scanned pages take longer to detect. SureRedact reads a scanned page’s text from the picture of it, which on our test Mac added about 0.9 seconds a page: 30 scanned pages took 38 seconds, against 10 seconds for the same pages with their text. On our Windows test laptop it added about 2 seconds a page: 50 scanned pages took about two and a half minutes, against 50 seconds with their text.
You can keep working. The Matters list and your other Matters stay usable while one is being created. Please don’t close SureRedact or restart the computer: a creation cut off that way is marked failed the next time SureRedact starts, and says so, rather than leaving a Matter that looks half-made.
Deleting a Matter while it is being created stops the work and removes it.
Try a smaller folder first. Before your full set, create a Matter from a few hundred files of the same kinds. It shows roughly how long the full import will take on your computer, and anything odd surfaces without a long wait.
Split the two waits, if you prefer. Untick Run detection now in the New Matter dialog. The Matter then opens as soon as its files are in, and you can start detection whenever you like with Detect.
Tell us the numbers. How many files, how many were converted, how many were listed as not included, and roughly how long it took. That is exactly what we need to make this better.

If you used an earlier version

Twenty-one of the fixes in 1.2 cannot reach back into work already done, whether that work was done in 1.1.0, in 1.0.1 or in a 1.2 release candidate. Nothing is rewritten behind you, deliberately: a record written now would say a decision was made at a moment when nobody made it. Each item says which versions it concerns. The first two are new in 1.2.0.

Scanned pages detected by an earlier version may not have been read. 1.1.0 on Windows, and every 1.2 release candidate, read a scanned page only where it found a text reader already on the computer. On a Mac it never found one, and on Windows it could miss one even where one was installed. Without one, detection passed over the text of every scanned page and counted the document as done, so Detect does not run on it again. For such a Matter — or if you are not sure — re-detect each scanned page: open it, and in the Detect menu choose Current page (re-detect). Or create the Matter again in 1.2.0. Your decisions on a re-detected page are kept.
A very wide CSV with long entries now imports. An earlier version could not lay out a row taller than a page, so such a file failed to import — and if it was the only file in the folder, the Matter could not be created. Matters already created are not changed, and a document cannot yet be added to an existing Matter: create the Matter again in 1.2.0 to bring the file in. (Professional)
⚠ Windows: a Word document converted by an upgraded install may have lost its straight apostrophes. An install made over an earlier version kept that version’s files, and one of them — an old copy of the library that converts Office documents — dropped every straight apostrophe a Word file stores in a particular way, without a warning: O’Brien became OBrien in the PDF you reviewed and redacted. A fresh install of rc5 or later did not do this, and 1.2.0 does not, however it is installed. Matters already created are not converted again. If you created a Matter from Word documents on Windows with a build you had installed over an earlier one, create it again in 1.2.0 and compare. (Windows)
Free: a Matter created with an earlier version did not import its email messages. Free reads .eml and .msg from 1.2 (from rc12 in testing); a Matter created before that left them out, and still does. Create the Matter again in 1.2.0 to bring them in. (Free)
⚠ A disclosure pack built with rc6 to rc10 may carry your file paths. In a folder Matter that held anything other than PDFs — emails, Word files, images — each converted document’s record in disclosure.json carried its full path on your computer, which names your user account and your folders. Nothing else in the pack did. Packs already built are not changed. Exporting the pack again from 1.2.0 leaves the paths out. If you have sent such a pack, the person you sent it to has those paths. (Professional)
A document you excluded as a copy in rc10 is not checked again. rc10 took a copy on your word; 1.2.0 checks every new one, and leaves rc10’s exclusions as they were recorded. Include such a document again and exclude it again to have 1.2.0 check it. (Professional: the pack then records how the copy was confirmed.)
A box you kept on a page rc10 covered with Redact the whole page still reads “kept” in the record, though the page reaches the requester black. Use Redact the whole page on that page again, or Redact every page…: 1.2.0 says it will redact the box you kept, and does.
A box rc10 let you decide with a ground that contradicts the decision keeps that ground. rc10 let a box be kept with a ground for withholding it, or redacted with False positive, and recorded both. 1.2.0 refuses the pair, and leaves such a ground off, saying so, whenever a box is decided. Decide such a box again — its key, or its card’s button — to clear it. (Professional)
rc10’s Enter could reach into the excluded documents, and what it wrote there stays. Pressed past the last document still in, rc10’s Enter could mark pages of an excluded document done, and those lines stay in the decisions log, which is never rewritten. 1.2.0 refuses every review action on an excluded document. (Professional)
Free: an outputs folder rc10 left out of date is brought up to date when you ask. After a document was excluded or included in a Matter already redacted, rc10 left the folder as it was, the excluded document’s PDF included, and called it current. 1.2.0 refreshes the folder whenever you exclude or include a document; for a folder rc10 left behind, Export offers Bring the folder up to date. (Free)
A following match may still hold grounds an earlier build let you give it. From 1.2, a match that follows its group takes its grounds and reason from the origin, and they are changed only there. A follower that already held grounds of its own from an earlier build keeps them for now, and its card says so: saving the origin’s grounds replaces them. (Professional)
A match a key left on its own in rc8 is still on its own. In rc8, k or r on a match decided on its own kept it there even when the decision was the group’s. 1.2.0 puts the match back in its group when you press the key, and does not go back over matches rc8 left that way: they still show on its own, and the group’s buttons and grounds still pass them by. Press the group’s key on such a match again, or u, and it follows the group, with the origin’s grounds and reason. (Professional)
A match you put back with Follow the origin again in rc8 may be missing its group’s grounds. If the match already had its group’s decision, it rejoined the group without the origin’s grounds and reason, so its line in the disclosure pack’s decisions log has none. Press u on such a match: it takes the group’s decision, grounds and reason again. (Professional)
A disclosure pack exported with 1.1.0, or with a release candidate before rc8, says the rest “was reviewed manually”. Its coverage statement told the person receiving it that what was not auto-detected — and any documents detection skipped — had been reviewed manually. SureRedact records decisions, not reading, so it cannot know that, and it should not have said so to the person the pack is for. Exporting the pack again from 1.2.0 produces the new statement, which says only what was scanned for, where, and what was not. (Professional)
A match a group’s button changed in an earlier build stays as that button left it. Until rc8, Redact all, Keep all, Undo all and Dismiss all reached every match in a group — including one you had decided the other way by hand, unless you had set it apart with A different person — decide separately. 1.2.0 leaves such matches alone from now on, but does not go back and restore what an earlier build’s buttons changed. If you used a group’s buttons after deciding some of its matches yourself, check those matches. (Professional)
Letters typed into the reason box by mistake are still there. In earlier builds, a review key pressed while the reason box had the keyboard — o, r, k — typed its letter into the reason instead of acting, and there was no way back to the page from the keyboard. 1.2.0 adds one (Esc), but reasons already saved are not changed, and a reason travels into the disclosure pack’s decisions log (Professional). If one of your reasons could have caught stray letters, read it before you export.
A disclosure pack you exported with a note on it has a README that is only that note. The note was replacing the README rather than sitting inside it, so the person you sent it to has your note and nothing explaining the pack — no contents list, nothing about the log of what was redacted, no statement of what was and was not auto-detected, and no mention of files that could not be included. The pack’s documents and its log are complete and correct; it is the explanation that is missing. Exporting the pack again from 1.2.0 produces the full README, with your note inside it. If you have sent such a pack and the recipient has questioned what is in it, that is why. (Professional)
A disclosure pack exported with 1.1.0, or with a release candidate before rc6, may carry near-simultaneous decisions out of order. Two lines written in the same fraction of a second were put in a random order in audit/decisions.jsonl. Nothing is wrong or missing and the pack is otherwise exactly what it claims; only the sequence between such lines is unreliable. Packs already sent are not changed. Exporting the pack again from 1.2.0 produces the correct order. (Professional)
Decisions made on an earlier version keep the log lines that version wrote. From 1.2, every line in a disclosure pack’s audit/decisions.jsonl about a box carries the reason and tags the box held once that decision was made. Lines already written are not changed. So in a Matter you reviewed on an earlier version, some decisions’ lines carry no reason and no tags, even where you gave them — for example decisions made with Select similar, a group’s buttons or the keyboard. Whatever you decide or save in 1.2.0 is logged with the box’s reason and tags. For a Matter reviewed on an earlier version, please don’t rely on the decisions log for reasons. (Professional)
A PDF that can’t be read is no longer left out without a word. When SureRedact creates a Matter, a PDF it cannot read — damaged, protected with a password, or one it was not allowed to open — is now listed among the source files not included, with the reason. Earlier versions left such a PDF out and said nothing, unless no PDF in the folder could be read. Matters created on an earlier version are not checked again: if you created a Matter on an earlier version, check that its document list holds every PDF you expected, and if one is missing, create the Matter again in 1.2.0 to see why.
Deleting a Matter now removes what SureRedact kept for it. Every earlier version, since 1.0, took a deleted Matter off the Matters list but left its folder on your computer — a folder that can hold copies of its documents, your review decisions and reasons, and its redacted files. Deleting a Matter now moves that folder to your system trash. When SureRedact starts and finds folders left behind this way, it says how many there are and how much space they take, and offers to move them to your system trash. Nothing is moved unless you choose Move to trash; Not now asks again the next time SureRedact starts.

Reporting a problem

Please include:

the version from the app’s header (v1.2.0), and whether you are on macOS or Windows, with its version;
what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead;
a screenshot if it helps — please make sure it shows no personal data from real documents.

Your description matters: error reports carry no message text, so what you tell us is often the only account of what went wrong.

Send reports to: hello@surematters.com