From install to your first protected relay in under 5 minutes. No account, no setup server.
Power users switch constantly between a terminal, a browser, a doc, an AI chat. SafeRelay removes that friction: highlight text in any app, press one hotkey, and it arrives in your armed target in milliseconds — without switching windows.
The security rides along silently. A local DLP engine runs in-flight and strips secrets (API keys, passwords, card numbers, tokens) before the content arrives. Desktop relay protection, Safe OCR, and the Browser/Desktop bridge run on your PC, and voice transcription works offline after its one-time speech model download. Optional AI commands and AI Vision contact the provider you configure when explicitly invoked.
Double-click SafeRelay-Setup.exe to install, then launch SafeRelay Desktop. A tray icon appears bottom-right — that's it, SafeRelay is running. Right-click the tray icon to explore the menu. Protection is ON by default.
Ctrl+Alt+T. The tray shows "Armed: notepad.exe". Arming only marks it as a destination — nothing pastes until you press a relay hotkey.sk-proj-abc123.Ctrl+Shift+9. SafeRelay copies, redacts, and pastes the protected result into Notepad.[OPENAI_KEY_1] in place of the API key. The real value is stored safely in SafeRelay's local Session Vault.Browser + Desktop: if you use the Browser Relay extension, turn on Desktop Integration in its popup. Ctrl+Shift+8 starts a browser-origin relay and Ctrl+Shift+9 a desktop-origin relay — "origin" is where the text comes from, not where it goes. Connected is not the same as armed: Desktop receives a browser relay only if an app is armed with Ctrl+Alt+T. See the Hotkey Guide for the full list.
Instead of arming a window every time, save it: arm the app with Ctrl+Alt+T, then go to Tray → Targets → Add Named Target and give it a short name ("putty", "notepad"). Next time, Tray → Targets → Named Targets → your name re-arms it instantly.
Required only for the AI commands in the Safe Capture palette (Ctrl+Shift+A). Safe OCR, Extract text, relay, voice and everything else work without a key.
| Provider | Base URL | Example model |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | https://api.openai.com/v1 | gpt-4o-mini |
| Groq | https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 | llama-3.3-70b-versatile |
| Local Ollama | http://localhost:11434/v1 | llava / llama3.2-vision |
| OpenRouter | https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 | any vision model |
Set it in Tray → Set AI Provider / API Key.
Press Ctrl+Alt+W, speak, click Stop — the transcript lands on your clipboard. Transcription is local-only; your audio is never uploaded. On first use SafeRelay downloads the speech model once (~74 MB, no audio included); after that it works offline. Audio exists only briefly as a temp file while it's transcribed, then is deleted.
SafeRelay automatically redacts these across all relay flows. Configure which groups are active via Tray → Protection → DLP Shields.
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| API Keys | OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, GitHub, Stripe, Slack, Google OAuth, Docker, npm |
| Credentials | Bearer tokens, PEM private keys, webhook URLs |
| Financial PII | Credit cards (Luhn-validated), SSN, IBAN, bank account numbers |
| Global PII | Email addresses, NI numbers, Aadhaar, PAN, CPF, NRIC, and 30+ more |
| Crypto | Bitcoin addresses, Ethereum addresses & private keys, seed phrases |
| Network | Internal IP addresses, MAC addresses |
Every value SafeRelay redacts this session is kept in its vault — session-only, in memory, never written to disk, gone when SafeRelay quits. Open Tray → Protection → View Session Vault; each entry shows as [PLACEHOLDER_xxx] → ****last4 so you can identify it without exposing the real value. Inside the viewer, Apply to File… redacts any text file (Free: up to 1 MB · Trial/Pro: up to 10 MB). Clear Vault wipes all mappings — always free.
Add codenames, project codes, or key names (PROJECT-FALCON, DB_PASSWORD) that SafeRelay redacts in every flow. Terms are matched as literal text. Set them in Tray → Protection → Custom Protected Terms, or faster: highlight any text and press Ctrl+Alt+G to add it instantly — no dialog, no restart. Free: up to 3 terms. Trial & Pro: unlimited.
Terminal emulators treat Ctrl+V as a control character, not paste. SafeRelay detects terminal windows automatically and uses Shift+Insert instead — no configuration needed. For PuTTY, arm the window first with Ctrl+Alt+T, then use Text Relay, Paste Relay, or AppRelay Paste (Ctrl+Alt+V) — SafeRelay uses the armed target, not the foreground window, to pick the paste method reliably.
If you run into an installation, licensing, relay, or configuration issue, contact SafeRelay support at [email protected].