BASALT · JOURNAL
Cloud features, offline work, and what leaves your machine
Acrobat integrates with Adobe's cloud services for storage, sharing, e-signature and some processing. Those features are genuinely useful and can generally be avoided by users who prefer to work locally.
The question for confidential document work is not whether cloud features exist, but what guarantees you have about what leaves the machine.
Configuration versus enforcement
Turning off cloud features is a configuration. It reflects the current settings, which can be changed by a preference, an update, an administrator policy, or a user who clicks the wrong thing.
Enforcement is different. Basalt's processing engine runs as a separate sandboxed service that holds no network entitlement at all. That is not a setting inside the application, it is a property of the code signature, and macOS refuses network access to the process regardless of what the software attempts.
You can check it yourself without running the application:
codesign -d --entitlements :- /Applications/Basalt.app/Contents/XPCServices/BasaltEngine.xpcThe absence of network entitlements in that output is the guarantee. It is verifiable by you, by your IT department, or by anyone who has doubts.
Why the distinction matters for privilege
For most work, a well configured application is entirely adequate. For material under legal privilege, a medical record, or a source document in journalism, the difference between "configured not to" and "cannot" is the difference between a policy and a property.
It is also easier to explain. Telling a client that a setting is turned off invites a question about who else can turn it on. Telling them the process has no network capability at the operating system level does not.
Being fair about the trade
The cloud features exist because they solve real problems. Sharing a document for review, collecting signatures from people outside your organisation, and syncing between devices are all genuinely harder without them.
An offline tool does not do those things, and if they are central to your work, that is a real loss rather than a purity gain. The right question is which of the two costs you more in your actual practice.
Frequently asked questions
Can Acrobat be used entirely offline?
Largely, yes. Its cloud integration can be avoided by users who prefer local work, though it remains a configuration rather than a hard guarantee about what the application is capable of.
What does no network entitlement mean?
It means the process is not permitted to use the network by the operating system, based on its code signature rather than on a setting inside the application. macOS refuses the access regardless of what the software tries to do.
How can I verify an application cannot reach the network?
Run codesign -d --entitlements :- against the executable and read the entitlements it declares. Absence of network entitlements is checkable without running the application and without trusting any claim on a website.
Is offline always better for document work?
No. Cloud features solve genuine problems around sharing, remote signature collection and syncing. Offline processing matters most for privileged, medical or source material, where a guarantee about what leaves the machine is worth more than convenience.
Doing it in Basalt
Basalt is a native macOS PDF toolkit with eighteen tools in one window: merge, split, compress, OCR, Bates numbering, privilege logs, forms, signing, watermarks, comparison and more. Redaction destroys content rather than covering it, and an independent verifier re-opens every written file and proves the material is gone before the file is saved. If it cannot prove it, nothing is written. A one time $29 licence covers up to three Macs, it is free for the first 24 hours, there is no account, and the engine holds no network entitlement at all, which macOS enforces at the code-signature level. Download it at basaltformac.com.
Redaction that proves itself
Basalt destroys the content you mark, then re-opens the file it wrote and proves the content is gone before it saves anything. Your documents never leave your Mac.