not “your files in our cloud”
edits stay local, not in somebody else's SaaS
Public beta · PDF-focused · macOS, Windows, Linux

A local-first PDF editor that respects
your filesystem.

Open Satchel is an early public beta for local-first PDF work: editing, redaction, signing, forms, OCR, compression, and cleanup. Expect rough edges while the 1.0 path stabilizes. No cloud upload. No account gate. No watermark traps.

Get the public betaView source on GitHub
Free AGPL public beta·Local-first PDF workflows·Installer signing is pre-1.0
MSA — Acme Health Systems.pdf~/Documents/Contracts/2024/
125%
Pages · 12
5. Confidentiality and Data Handling.
Draft v3 · Reviewed by Legal · 2024-09-12

Each party shall maintain the confidentiality of all proprietary information disclosed by the other under this Agreement. The receiving party agrees to limit access to confidential material to employees and contractors with a demonstrable need to know, and to apply the same standard of care it uses for its own confidential information of like importance.

The indemnification provisions in Section 8.2 apply to any breach of this clause.1

Data Processing

Customer data covered by this Agreement is processed in accordance with the Data Processing Addendum dated September 1, 2024. Service Provider may engage subprocessors at its discretion. Subprocessor changes require thirty (30) days written notice.

For the avoidance of doubt, this Agreement does not transfer ownership of any data, model weights, or training artifacts to Service Provider.2

Renewal

This Agreement renews automatically for successive one-year terms unless either party provides written notice of non-renewal at least sixty (60) days prior to the end of the then-current term.

Comments · 2
1You14:22
review with privacy team — does our DPA still cover scope here?
2You14:31
indemnity carve-out we discussed — flag for final review before signature.

Most PDF tools treat your documents like leverage — upload gates, watermarks, accounts, and subscriptions. Open Satchel treats them like your files. Because they are.

01

Local-first, by design.

Files live in your filesystem. We open them on your machine. Nothing about normal PDF editing needs an internet connection.

02

Editing, not bait.

PDF editing, signing, redaction, forms, OCR, conversion, and cleanup are active beta workflows, with known limitations documented in the public repo.

03

Free AGPL source. Commercial when needed.

The public editor is free under AGPL. Organizations that need non-AGPL terms, signed builds, support, SDK/source access, or OEM rights can license those separately.

01FILESYSTEM

Your files stay where you put them.

Open Satchel reads PDFs from your disk and saves edited PDFs where you choose. There's no library, no inbox, no walled garden. Move a file in Finder, it moves in Satchel. Delete it in the terminal, it's gone — no orphaned cloud copy to clean up later.

  • Save in place or export a copy. Keep control over where edited files land.
  • Real PDF operations. Redact, split, merge, crop, reorder, edit text, and work with forms without uploading the document.
  • Recents are local paths, not a managed cloud library.
~/Documents/Field Work/
  • 2024 Calabar Survey.pdf
    2024 Calabar Survey.redacted.pdf
  • Q3 Report Draft.pdf
    Q3 Report Draft.edited.pdf
  • Permit Application.pdf
  • archive/
    • 2019 Transect Map.pdf
      2019 Transect Map.pages-extracted.pdf
    • Site Photos.pdf
02PDF EDITING

PDF editing that is being built in public.

Edit text, move images, reorder pages, fill forms, sign, OCR, redact, compress, convert, and validate without turning your document into a cloud upload. Some advanced PDFs will still expose beta rough edges.

  • Text and layout edits target real PDF internals, with edge cases tracked openly as the engine matures.
  • Page tools cover merge, split, crop, reorder, rotate, compress, extract, and compare workflows.
  • Redaction is real — saved PDFs remove the underlying content instead of only painting over it.
Highlight
H
Underline
U
Redact — removes underlying text
R
Ink — pressure-aware
P
Comment
C
Track changes
T
03PRIVACY

What we don't do is the feature.

No telemetry. No “anonymous usage data.” No account. No cloud sync. No AI API dependency. Normal document processing stays local; network activity is limited to signed update checks, opt-in signing verification calls, and one-time OCR language downloads.

network inventory is public — verify with your firewall

cloud sync, by default
files stay on your disk
account required
no account, ever
“anonymous” telemetry
no analytics or call-home
AI uploads your PDFs
no AI API calls
subscription, expires
free desktop app
closed source binary
AGPL open source — audit the code
Beta
first public release
0B
PDF upload for normal editing
No
account required
AGPL
public source
04FORMATS

PDF first. More on the way.

The public beta is focused on PDF editing: text, pages, images, redaction, forms, OCR, signatures, compression, cleanup, and local export workflows. Office round-trips currently rely on a LibreOffice sidecar; native Word, Excel, and PowerPoint engines are roadmap modules.

PDF
public beta
Word
sidecar now, native later
Excel
sidecar now, native later
PowerPoint
sidecar now, native later
Batch automation
beta workflow
Compliance validation
beta workflow
Server / headless
future add-on
Other formats
roadmap
05QUESTIONS, ASKED
Is this production-polished yet?
No. This is a first public beta. It is usable enough to publish, but you should expect bugs, installer trust warnings while code signing matures, and documented limitations around advanced PDFs.
Is there really no cloud component at all?
Correct. Document processing is local. Network activity is limited to signed update checks, opt-in timestamp / OCSP calls during signing, and one-time OCR language model downloads. You can verify with Little Snitch, tcpdump, or your firewall of choice.
How do I sync files between devices, then?
However you sync the rest of your files: iCloud Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Syncthing, git, a USB stick, or nothing at all. Open Satchel does not need an account system to edit a PDF.
What about iOS or Android?
Not for V1. The launch target is the desktop editor first: macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Is the app open source?
Yes — Open Satchel is licensed under the GNU AGPL-3.0-only, an OSI-approved copyleft open-source license. A separate commercial license is available for organizations that need rights AGPL doesn't grant (closed-source embedding, private modifications, procurement / support agreements).
Will edited PDFs work in Acrobat / Preview / etc.?
The goal is standard PDFs that open in normal readers. Some advanced workflows have known limitations, and those are documented honestly instead of hidden behind marketing copy.
Who makes this?
Open Satchel is built in Kingston, Jamaica. We started it out of a stubborn dislike of PDF tools that treat local documents like bait.

Read like it's yours.

Because it is. Open Satchel is a free public beta local-first PDF editor for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Commercial licensing is available for organizations that need non-AGPL terms, SDK/source access, OEM rights, signed builds, procurement docs, or support.

Get the public betaSource codeLicensing