# Privacy masking: Find the API key before your viewers do.

> Finds emails, API keys, card numbers, phone numbers and addresses, and masks them.

Canonical: https://www.smoothcapture.app/features/privacy-blur

Run a scan and SmoothCapture reads the text in your recording, finds sensitive details and masks them wherever they appear, even while the page scrolls.

## Highlights

### Five kinds of detail

Email addresses, API keys, card numbers, phone numbers and street addresses.

### Follows the text

Masks stay on the text as it scrolls or moves, not on a fixed box.

### You decide

Every finding is listed. Show or hide each one individually.

### Always mask

Add words, such as a client or a codename, that should be masked in every recording.

### Runs on your Mac

The scan runs locally and only when you start it.

### Plus manual redaction

For anything that is not text, draw a Redact annotation over it.

## How to do it

### 1. Scan the recording

Open Privacy in the inspector, turn on Mask Sensitive Info and run a scan.

### 2. Review what it found

Check the Found list and hide anything that should stay visible. Add Always Mask words for names that scanning would not recognise.

## FAQ

### What does the privacy scanner detect?

Email addresses, API keys, card numbers, phone numbers and street addresses. You can add your own words to always mask.

### Does the masking move with the content?

Yes. Masks track the text, so a key stays covered while the page scrolls.

### Is my recording uploaded to scan it?

No. Text recognition and masking run on your Mac, and only when you start a scan.

## Related

- [Annotations & keystrokes](https://www.smoothcapture.app/features/annotations-and-keystrokes)
- [Screen recording](https://www.smoothcapture.app/features/screen-recording)
- [Export & sharing](https://www.smoothcapture.app/features/export)