not “your files in our cloud”
edits stay local, not in somebody else's SaaS
V1 PDF editor · macOS, Windows, Linux
A free PDF editor that respects
your filesystem.
Open Satchel is a local-first PDF editor. Edit text, pages, images, redactions, forms, and signatures on your own machine. No cloud upload. No account. No watermark traps.
Download when V1 shipsView on GitHub
Free desktop app·Local-first PDF editing·AGPL-3.0 open source
MSA — Acme Health Systems.pdf~/Documents/Contracts/2024/
125%
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.
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.
Text edits, page operations, redaction, forms, signatures, and export workflows are built for real PDFs instead of teaser-mode demos.
03
Free AGPL app. Commercial when needed.
The public editor is free under AGPL. Organizations that need non-AGPL terms, signed builds, support, SDK, source, 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
- 2019 Transect Map.pdf
02PDF EDITING
PDF editing that does the boring parts right.
Edit text, move images, reorder pages, fill forms, sign, OCR, redact, and validate without turning your document into a cloud upload.
- Text and layout edits use engine paths built around real PDF internals, not screenshots pretending to be edits.
- 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.
Redact — removes underlying text
R
03PRIVACY
What we don't do is the feature.
No telemetry. No “anonymous usage data.” No account. No cloud sync. No AI features that require sending your contracts, your manuscripts, or your medical records to someone else's server. The app works the same with the network unplugged.
verified by your own firewall — you can watch
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
→
on-device only, opt-in
subscription, expires
→
free desktop app
closed source binary
→
AGPL open source — audit the code
0B
PDF upload for normal editing
04FORMATS
PDF first. More on the way.
V1 is focused on PDF editing: text, pages, images, redaction, forms, OCR, signatures, and local export workflows. A broader document editor is the roadmap; PDF is the current product.
Batch automation
future add-on
Compliance validation
future add-on
Server / headless
future add-on
05QUESTIONS, ASKED
Is there really no cloud component at all?
Correct. The app makes zero outbound network requests in normal operation — not even for “checking for updates” unless you explicitly trigger it. 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 V1 is a free 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.