# Redact email addresses

> Redact email addresses from text, JSON, and CSV with one HTTP call. Returns exact character offsets and keeps your structure intact.

Canonical: https://bitbanger.in/entities/email
Last updated: 2026-10-27

Category: Contact details · Entity type: `contact.email`

Email addresses are the most common PII in support tickets, logs, and exported datasets, and the most common cause of accidental disclosure. Redactly replaces them with a type label while leaving the surrounding text untouched.

## How Redactly detects email addresses

- Matched by a format regex that runs independently of the model, so an address is caught even when the surrounding sentence gives no context.
- The whole address is the span — no fragments such as the domain alone being reported.
- If a token also resembles a URL, the email boundary wins because the address match is authoritative.

## Why redact email addresses?

A single leaked address list is enough to trigger a GDPR personal-data breach notification.

## Example request

```bash
curl -X POST https://api.bitbanger.in/v1/redact \
  -H "X-API-Key: rdct_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text": "Escalation contact: priya.raman@northwind-example.com, ticket #4412.", "style": "replace"}'
```

## FAQ

**Does Redactly redact email addresses automatically?**

Yes. Send text to the API and every detected type is redacted, including email addresses. To redact only this type, pass the value contact.email in the entities filter. No training or configuration is required.

**What happens to email addresses after redaction?**

With style set to replace, each match becomes [contact.email] — the entity type in square brackets. Setting style to mask replaces every character with a block character, and remove deletes the span entirely.

## Related entity types

- [Phone numbers](https://bitbanger.in/entities/phone) — Redact phone numbers in national and international formats from text, JSON, and CSV. Model-gated, so dates and ID numbers are not mistaken for numbers.
- [Usernames](https://bitbanger.in/entities/username) — Redact handles and account usernames from transcripts, exports, and community data.
- [Person names](https://bitbanger.in/entities/person-name) — Redact personal names from free text, including partial names the model only half-captures.

Try it on your own text: https://bitbanger.in/entities/email