Remove IP addresses from text
IP addresses are personal data under EU law and one of the eighteen identifiers HIPAA’s Safe Harbor method requires you to strip — and they are pasted into chat windows more often than almost anything else, because they live in the log lines people are debugging.
This page replaces IPv4, IPv6 and MAC addresses with stable placeholders, so the same host keeps the same label throughout the file and the pattern you were investigating survives.
Your text
Safe to paste
Preset: IPv4, IPv6 and MAC addresses only.
Mapping — 0 values (only visible in this tab)
| Placeholder | Real value | Uses |
|---|
Check a few rows before you paste — this is the fastest way to spot a detector that grabbed the wrong thing. Nothing here is stored or sent anywhere.
What to look for — 30 detectors, custom terms, exceptions
People & organisations
Government & health IDs
Financial
Technical & secrets
Location
Step 3 — paste the AI’s answer here to put the real values back
The model replies using the placeholders. Paste its answer below and every
[NAME_1] becomes the real name again — using the mapping held in this tab, which
is the only copy that exists.
How it works
- Open this page — the detectors are already set for “Remove IP addresses”.
- Paste your text, or drop a .txt, .md, .csv, .json or .log file onto the panel.
- Check the highlights: every match is coloured by type, and one click keeps a type as-is.
- Copy the safe version and paste it into the AI tool of your choice.
- Paste the model’s reply back into step 3 to restore the real values.
Octet validation, not dot counting
Every IPv4 candidate is checked octet by octet, so 999.1.1.1 is not an address and 10.4.22 — a version string — is not either. IPv6 needs at least three colon-separated groups, which keeps timestamps and clock values out. MAC addresses are matched in both colon and dash form.
Nothing distinguishes a public address from a private one in the output: 10.4.22.19 and 203.0.113.44 both become placeholders, because internal ranges map your network topology and that is worth protecting too.
Keeping the debugging signal
The value of an address in a log is almost never the address itself — it is the repetition. One client retrying four times, two clients hitting the same endpoint, a single device generating every error. Stable placeholders keep exactly that: [IP_1] on lines 1 and 2 tells the model the same thing the real address would.
If you also need tokens, emails and account references gone from the same file, the log preset turns those on while leaving timestamps and stack frames intact.
Tips
- Hostnames are not addresses and are not detected — put internal hostnames in custom terms.
- Keep localhost readable by adding 127.0.0.1 to the “never redact” list.
- CIDR suffixes (/24) are left outside the placeholder, so subnet arithmetic still reads correctly.
Detectors are pattern-based and imperfect: read the highlighted output before you paste it anywhere, and confirm your own confidentiality obligations against the current rules for your profession, employer or jurisdiction. Compiled 2026-07-29.
Frequently asked questions
Are IP addresses really personal data?
In the EU, yes — dynamic IP addresses have been treated as personal data where the holder has means reasonably likely to identify the subscriber, and the GDPR names online identifiers explicitly. US law is narrower in general, but HIPAA lists IP addresses among the Safe Harbor identifiers.
Will version numbers or dates be redacted by mistake?
They should not be: octet validation rejects most of them, and three-part numbers such as 10.4.22 are simply not IPv4 addresses. If your text has an unusual case, use the “never redact” list.
Does the tool resolve or geolocate the addresses?
No lookups of any kind. Resolving an address would mean contacting a third-party service with the data you are trying to protect.