How to redact emails in screenshots without opening Photoshop

2026-04-15 · 5 minute read · Tutorial

You're sharing a screenshot of your inbox, your CRM, your Stripe dashboard — and there's an email visible that shouldn't be. Here are five ways to hide it, from "fine for one screenshot" to "fastest workflow possible".

The five methods at a glance

1. macOS Preview Mark Up — fine if you do this once

Open the screenshot in Preview, click the Mark Up tool (pencil-tip icon in the toolbar), draw a black rectangle over the email, save. Or use the "highlight" tool with black to make a redaction-style bar.

Pros: already on every Mac. Free.

Cons: 30+ seconds per email. Doesn't work on screen recordings. The unredacted screenshot still exists on your disk if you don't overwrite it.

2. Skitch / CleanShot X / Annotate

Dedicated screenshot apps with built-in blur and redaction tools. The workflow is: hotkey to take the screenshot, the editor opens, drag a rectangle over the email, click "blur" or "pixelate", export.

Pros: editor opens automatically. Faster than Preview.

Cons: $20–$30 one-time per app. Still 10–15 seconds per redaction. Works only on screenshots, not on the original page.

3. Browser DevTools — only for devs

Right-click the email → Inspect → in the Elements panel, modify the text content (set it to ***@example.com) or add style="display: none".

Pros: free. Already familiar to devs.

Cons: breaks layout (the surrounding row doesn't reflow nicely). Doesn't survive page reload. Easy to leave a half-edited mess in the DOM.

4. Loom / Zoom built-in blur — only for your webcam

Loom and Zoom have a "blur background" feature. It only blurs your webcam feed — your face, your kitchen, your roommate. It does not blur the screen content you're sharing. So it doesn't help with redacting emails on the screen at all.

This is worth mentioning because users frequently expect it to. It doesn't.

5. RedactPro — built for "I do this every day"

RedactPro is a Chrome extension that lets you redact emails (and 10 other patterns) on any webpage before you screenshot.

For one specific email

1. Click the RedactPro icon in your toolbar
2. Click "Click an element to redact"
3. Click the email on the page → blurred
4. Take your screenshot

Time: 2-3 seconds per email.

For every email on the page

1. Press Alt+Shift+E
2. RedactPro auto-detects every email on the page (plus API keys, IPs, JWTs, credit cards, etc) and redacts them all in one shot

Time: 1 keystroke. Whether the page has 1 email or 50.

FAQ

Does RedactPro modify the actual page?

It applies CSS classes and DOM overlays for the visual effect. The underlying HTML is unchanged — RedactPro is a visual aid for screensharing, not cryptographic redaction. For high-stakes use (medical records, legal evidence), redact at the source. For "don't show this email in a Loom" use, RedactPro is exactly the right tool.

Does it work on Gmail / Outlook / Notion?

Yes. RedactPro works on any webpage including all the major SaaS apps. It uses Chrome's activeTab permission, so it has access only when you click the icon, and it doesn't matter what site you're on.

Will it redact something I don't want it to?

The auto-detect feature only matches text against 11 specific regex patterns (emails, OpenAI keys, etc.). It doesn't redact arbitrary text. If you want to redact something custom, click that element manually.