BASALT · JOURNAL
An offline alternative to Smallpdf and the browser tools
Browser based PDF tools are genuinely convenient. They work on any machine, need no installation, and handle the common operations well. For a restaurant menu or a hobby project they are a sensible choice.
They share one architectural fact worth understanding before you use them for anything else: to process your file, they must receive your file.
What uploading actually means
The document leaves your machine and is processed on a server you do not control. That is not an accusation about any particular company, it is how a web application works. The file is transmitted, held while it is worked on, and the result is sent back.
Providers publish retention policies and many delete promptly. The question is not whether a policy exists but whether you are permitted to rely on it.
When it stops being acceptable
Client documents under legal privilege. Medical records. Anything under a protective order or an NDA that names permitted recipients. Employee investigation files. Source material in journalism.
In several of these, uploading is not merely risky but a breach in itself, because the list of parties permitted to hold the document does not include a processing service.
Many organisations have a policy about this that individual employees are unaware of. It is worth checking before rather than after.
What an offline tool gives you
The file never moves. There is no transmission, no third party holding it, and no policy to rely on.
The strongest version of this is not a promise but an enforced property. On macOS, an application's network access is declared in its code signature, and a process without a network entitlement is refused by the operating system regardless of what the software attempts. That is checkable from outside the application:
codesign -d --entitlements :- /Applications/YourApp.appAn entitlements list with no network capability is a fact rather than a claim.
What you give up
Convenience, genuinely. An offline application has to be installed, it only works on the machine it is installed on, and there is no sharing a link with a colleague.
For casual work that trade is not worth making. For confidential documents it is not really a trade at all.
Frequently asked questions
Are online PDF tools safe?
They are as safe as the provider's practices, because your file is transmitted to and processed on their servers. That is fine for non-sensitive documents and unsuitable for material under privilege, an NDA, or a protective order, where the permitted holders of the document do not include a processing service.
Do online PDF tools keep my files?
Most publish a retention policy and delete after a period. The question for confidential work is not whether a policy exists but whether your obligations allow you to rely on someone else's policy at all.
What is an offline alternative to browser PDF tools?
A native application that processes files locally. The strongest form declares no network entitlement in its code signature, so macOS refuses it network access regardless of what the software tries to do, which you can verify with codesign before trusting it.
How do I check whether an app can reach the internet?
Run codesign -d --entitlements :- against the application bundle and read the entitlements. Absence of network entitlements is verifiable without running the app and without trusting any published claim.
Doing it in Basalt
Basalt is a native macOS PDF toolkit: eighteen tools in one window covering merge, split, page organisation, compression, OCR, passwords, Bates numbering, forms, signing, watermarks and comparison. Every file is processed on your Mac, and the engine that opens documents holds no network entitlement at all, which macOS enforces at the code-signature level, so nothing is uploaded. Redaction destroys content rather than covering it and an independent verifier proves the material is gone before a file is written. A one time $29 licence covers up to three Macs, and it is free for the first 24 hours. Download it at basaltformac.com, or install it with brew install --cask chipmunk1101/tap/basalt.
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.