Photos, PDFs, Word docs and code carry data you never see: metadata and GPS, invisible tracking characters, hidden text, watermarks. scrub finds it, tells you exactly what it is, and cleans it — all on your own device. Nothing is ever uploaded.
Windows · free to scan · runs 100% offline · part of The GG Network
Most of it is invisible on screen. Any of it can identify you, leak private details, or track a document back to you.
EXIF, XMP, IPTC and Content Credentials in photos; author, company and edit history in documents — often including where and when.
Zero-width and Unicode "tag" characters slipped into text to fingerprint or watermark it — completely invisible when you read it.
Cyrillic or Greek characters swapped for ordinary letters (homoglyphs) — a word that looks normal but isn't.
Vanished text, tracked changes, comments and embedded macros in Word/Office files that ride along when you send them.
Payloads tacked onto the end of images, embedded files and auto-running JavaScript inside PDFs.
Invisible marks embedded to trace a file. scrub removes the fragile ones and is honest about the robust ones it can't.
PNG & JPEG — strips metadata and appended data losslessly, no quality change.
Flags metadata, JavaScript, auto-actions, embedded files and hidden text.
Reads the real document text, hidden runs, macros, comments and author data.
Invisible characters, look-alike letters and odd whitespace in any text file.
No account, no upload, no learning curve. Double-click, drop a file, done.
Hiding techniques evolve. scrub doesn't just match a fixed list — a heuristic layer flags anomalies it was never explicitly taught: unusual character categories, mixed-script words, the tell-tale rhythm of an encoded watermark, and non-standard file structure. When it meets something new it can't yet remove, it says so, and you can help it improve — on your terms, sending only a redacted snippet, never your document.
scrub does all of its work locally. There is no cloud, no upload, no account. The one time anything can be sent — helping us catch a brand-new technique — is a redacted snippet you review and approve first, one click at a time. Privacy isn't a feature here; it's the whole design.
Scanning is free, forever. Cleaning and power features are GG Pro.
Already own scrub Pro? Add detection updates for $1/mo (billed yearly) — you'll need the activation code from your purchase.