Black Highlighter 25.1 includes a bunch of new enhancements for Shortcuts. ## Unified Action All redaction actions have been combined into a single unified action, making it easier to find the action you need. The single "Redact Image" action includes the ability to redact specific words, detect personal information, or just redact everything. ## Auto-Hidden List Actions Three actions support the ability to manage your auto-hidden words list inside Shortcuts. Get the list, add, or remove words from it, all in Shortcuts. ## Output Formats The unified redact action has an option to specify what file format to use when redacting: match the input, or export as either PNG, JPEG, or HEIC. ## Bug Fix When deleting a word from the auto-hidden words list, other words maintain their active state instead of being reset to active.
Black Highlighter 25.0 adds a whole new tool, the Magic Lasso, along with a number of other changes and fixes. Magic Lasso The Magic Lasso gives you the power to select a lot of text all at once. Select entire paragraphs and redact them all at once. The Magic Lasso doesn’t just fill a whole area; it uses the same smart detection as the Magic Highlighter to neatly and completely redact the text you select. New Tool Effects The Magic Lasso and Eraser have new effects that help make it clear when you’re using those tools as opposed to the Magic or Manual Highlighter tools. Updated Contact Info Black Highlighter is now available on Bluesky and Facebook! Find links in the settings area to follow Black Highlighter for announcements and support. Bug Fixes Sending a contact e-mail through the app correctly dismisses the window after saving, instead of… just sitting around confusingly.
Black Highlighter 24.5 makes a few minor improvements: - The photo library remembers what album you had previously selected across launches, so if you store photos to be selected in a given album, you don't have to go searching. - Shortcuts that add redactions now allow you to specify the color of the redaction. - The page for marketing Ultra Highlighter is now easier to use.
Black Highlighter 24.4 fixes a bug when running on iOS 18 or newer where using the Magic Highlighter didn’t line up with where you placed your finger.
Black Highlighter 24.3 brings major updates when using the Apple Pencil with Black Highlighter. Double-tap on Apple Pencil to quickly switch tools, open the color picker, and more, or squeeze the Apple Pencil Pro to display a quick-select menu of tools. This release also adds a new way to export your work: you can now choose to save over the existing image rather than making a new copy. As always, this release also fixes a few small bugs: - Undo and redo should have a lot fewer times where using them does nothing. - Fixing a crash when you add a new photo to your photo library while Black Highlighter is open (such as accepting an image over AirDrop).
Black Highlighter 24.2 brings a lot of small improvements to your redacting experience! - Fixed Black Highlighter not launching for users on certain versions of iOS. - Added two new Shortcuts actions: "Open Image", which opens any image in Black Highlighter, and "Redact All Text", which redacts everything you find. - Existing Shortcuts actions can now optionally open Black Highlighter with the redactions they created already in place. - Fixed a bug with the "seek and destroy" (search) feature on iPadOS. - Fixed a bug where sometimes the "done" button did not close the new auto-redactions sheet.
Black Highlighter 24.1 is focused on improving the Ultra Highlighter auto-redaction features. This feature now has a new, more-modern looking interface. It's also now available *while editing an image*, so that you can quickly add, remove, or temporarily disable words from being auto-redacted. This version also improves the responsiveness and availability of the auto-redaction features in the Shortcuts app. Expect more improvements to Black Highlighter's Shortcuts support in upcoming releases! As always, this release fixes a few bugs as well: - Fixed an issue with the color of buttons in alerts when using light mode. - Fixed a rare crash that could occur after selecting a photo.
This release of Black Highlighter comes with a bunch of bug fixes! - Significantly sped up presentation of detected text, which fixes a crash that could happen in an image with *lots* of separate text boxes. - Fixed an issue where buttons were invisible when picking photos in light mode. - Added a button to get to help/settings when Black Highlighter isn't granted photo library access, making it easier to keep your photos private. - Fixed a slight transparent "gap" on the edge of a redaction.
This release fixes an issue that caused Black Highlighter to crash on launch on iOS 15. Special thanks to Black Highlighter user "mononz" for assisting with tracking down this issue!
Black Highlighter 23.2 fixes an issue where the initial "preview" of detected text would not appear.
Black Highlighter 23.1 comes with a new set of bug fixes: - When switching between photo albums, you are now shown your most-recent photos rather than a random spot in the middle. - If you viewed the settings page in light mode, it was previously bright white instead of the correct gray color. It now looks like it should. - Fixed an issue where the toolbar on the editing page could have a split appearance (half-black, half-gray). - The app may now requests App Store ratings for all types of saving; previously if you saved via the "Done" button, it would never do this. On that last note, if you're reading these release notes, please leave a rating for Black Highlighter! It'd be a great help.
Black Highlighter 23.0 introduces support for redacting text at any angle. Even if you didn't get the perfect scan or photo, Black Highlighter can now find text in your image and hide it. This release also fixes an issue sharing redacted images on iPad, and adds additional error logging to help me keep on top of common errors like this.
This version fixes a common bug where the exported image was completely transparent, solid black, or solid white. My sincere apologies for the number of people this affected and the time it took me to get a fix out. Thank you to everyone who reported the issue or helped test a fix. Along the way, I also fixed a few other bugs: - Some images would be rotated and squashed compared to the original. These images are now exported correctly. - Exported file sizes are now much smaller. - Sharing an image via the "done" alert previously did not include your redactions. Now it does. - Fixed a crash when opening the document scanner or photo importer after saving an image to the photo library. And even found time to include an actual feature: a new iOS 16-style toolbar on iPad!
Black Highlighter 22.7 improves the Magic Highlighter's accuracy, especially when redacting small words such as "it" or "as". Previously, the Magic Highlighter would redact the word and quite a bit of space on either side of it, meaning the beginning or end of surrounding words could accidentally also get redacted. The new version of the Magic Highlighter is much better at sticking to just the word you meant to redact—and nothing extra. Additionally, this version fixes a few bugs: - Fixed a crash that could happen when saving a new image to your Photo Library. - Fixed an issue with automatic redactions where the button to add new words didn't appear, making it impossible to add more than one word to the list.
This release fixes a bug with Shortcuts where the "Redact Image" action would not use the set of words you had entered.
This release improves many parts of Black Highlighter for users of accessibility technologies such as VoiceOver and Switch Control. This includes: - Fixing the name of the color and tool picker buttons when read by VoiceOver or Voice Control. - Fixing layout issues on the in-app purchase screen when using some Dynamic Type sizes. - Marking many button actions throughout the app, such as selecting a photo or redacting text. - Adding a VoiceOver rotor for navigating only redacted words. - Enabling single-action redaction when using the Switch Control gliding cursor. - Correctly handling erasing redactions when using VoiceOver, Voice Control, or Switch Control.
Black Highlighter 22.3 comes with a small dose of AutoMAYtion goodies. Black Highlighter now has a new, smarter Shortcut action: "Redact Detected Items". Redact Detected Items locates addresses, phone numbers, or people's names and automatically redacts them. Use it in the Shortcuts app to quickly redact personal information from large batches of images! Shortcuts didn't get *all* the love, though. This release also adds a "Share Image" option to the alert that appears if you try to close a redacted image before saving it, allowing you to quickly send it somewhere other than your photo library.
Black Highlighter 22.2 brings you a whole lot of bug fixes and polish. Hold on to your butts: If you used the new Find mode from Black Highlighter 22.1, sometimes autocorrect would add an extra space to what you were searching for and then Find mode couldn't find what you were searching for. Find mode is now smarter, and will ignore extra space around your search. Using Find mode or the Ultra Highlighter automatic find would not trigger the alert that protects you from losing your work if you hit Done before you were, well, done. Now it should show up no matter how you've made your redactions. If you were using a limited selection of your photos with Black Highlighter, and then you added more photos, Black Highlighter would ask you if you wanted to add EVEN MORE photos, which is a weird time to ask that. Black Highlighter now never asks you for additional photo permission, which is the more appropriate time. Also, while you were adding more photos to your selection, there was a single solitary weird blue arrow. That arrow has been appropriately chastised and is now wearing the proper uniform.
Black Highlighter 22.1 includes a new feature: Find mode. With Find mode, you can type in a word you'd like to redact (such as a person's name) and with a single tap, Black Highlighter automatically finds and hides every occurrence of that word. Find mode helps you cover up every place that word appears, and do so quickly and easily. This release improves the experience of using the "Reduce Motion" accessibility setting. It also fixes a crash when saving after hitting the Done button.
This release fixes a few cosmetic issues: - When selecting a single image (instead of giving Highlighter access to your photo library), some buttons were hard to read if using light mode. This UI is now permanently dark mode, the only correct option. - When scanning documents, some buttons were hard to read if using dark mode. This has been fixed, as I never want to give a reason for someone to prefer light mode. - On some iPads, the settings menu displayed only a "Settings" button, which took you to the *real* settings menu. The settings button on the main menu should now actually take you directly to the real settings menu. This bug occurred regardless of your choice of dark mode vs. wrong mode.
Fixed the color picker button not working on iPad. oops
It's the iPad update! A lot of work has gone into making this version the best iPad app it can be: - Cleaned up the iPad editing design to better take advantage of the extra space on the iPad. - Fixed a bug causing selections in the albums sidebar to be blue instead of the appropriate dark gray. Thanks to iOS developer Peter Witham for the assist on this fix. - The albums sidebar now shows your current selection at all times instead of disappearing after you change it. - Made the scroll bar look right in the settings view in light mode.
This is the "make life a little nicer" update. We've gone and fixed a ton of the little papercuts in Black Highlighter to make using it a better experience. Here's the fixes we made: - Major performance improvements when initially scanning a new image. No more waiting to tap buttons or start highlighting! - Fixed several causes of crashes when using the "hide text" extension in other apps. - Fixed a crash that could happen when saving an image. - Updated the settings design. - Fixed a bug where you were unable to select new photos if you had not given Black Highlighter full access to your photo library. - Related, fixed a bug where using "only selected photos" could display two document scanner buttons.
This update introduces a new tool to the Black Highlighter toolset: the Magic Era… er, the eraser. The totally normal eraser. Made a mistake and redacted too much? Switch to the eraser and bring back the text you didn't want to lose. Additionally, try out these other fun fixes: - The Magic Highlighter and Manual Highlighter icons are now easier to tell apart. - Fixed a minor performance issue when selecting areas to redact. - Fixed an issue with saving to the photos library sometimes being *incredibly* slow or crashing.
More bug fixes to make your redacting experience even better. - Fixed "Open In…" not actually opening images. - Albums list is now called "Albums", instead of "Photos" or "Back". - Tweaked settings page design. - Cleaned up some system integration issues that *probably* weren't actually causing bugs?
Bug fixes! One for you and one for me: There was a bug where the preview that you saw prior to saving an image didn't look exactly like what got exported. Previews would show a solid black box, while the export would have the fancy "marker" effects applied. Now the preview has the same effects, so you can see what you're actually doing. Black Highlighter was supposed to prompt for App Store ratings occasionally after you saved or shared an image. A bug prevented this from happening. If you like Black Highlighter, please take advantage of the fact that this bug is now fixed. :)