Eraser

Take back your privacy. Eraser sends data removal requests to 700+ data brokers on your behalf — for free.

You know those sites like Spokeo, BeenVerified, and Whitepages that have your home address, phone number, and family members' names? They're called data brokers, and there are hundreds of them. Services like Incogni and DeleteMe charge $100+/year to send opt-out requests to these companies. Eraser does the same thing, but it's open source and completely free.

📖 eraser.drumandbytes.dev — broker directory, opt-out guides, and the list of EU/EEA data protection authorities. 🔗 More Drumandbytes projects

What to Expect

The good: Eraser automatically sends removal request emails to 700+ data brokers. Many brokers process these requests automatically—you send the email, they remove your data, done.

The reality: Some brokers require additional steps. They might send you a confirmation link to click, ask you to fill out a form on their website, or request identity verification. Eraser tracks these responses and shows you exactly what needs manual attention.

The bottom line: You're not paying $100+/year, and you're taking real action to protect your privacy. Even with some manual steps, Eraser handles the heavy lifting and gives you a fighting chance against the data broker industry.

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The Easy Way (Web Interface)

If you're not comfortable with command-line tools, Eraser has a visual interface that runs in your web browser.

What You'll Need

1. Eraser itself: install with Homebrew, or download the file for your OS from Releases. No Go needed, unless you want to build from source.
2. An email account to send from: Gmail, Proton Mail (via Bridge), Fastmail, mailbox.org, Posteo, iCloud, Amazon SES, or any provider with SMTP access (setup instructions below)

Getting Started

Step 1: Get Eraser

Homebrew (macOS, and Linux where cask support is available):

brew tap drumandbytes/tap
brew install --cask drumandbytes/tap/eraser

Homebrew 6+ asks you to trust a third-party tap once — if it does, run brew trust drumandbytes/tap and re-run the install. The cask removes macOS's Gatekeeper quarantine from the (unsigned) binary after install, so there's no "Open Anyway" step. If brew on your Linux setup doesn't do casks, use the tarball below.

Prebuilt binary: grab your OS's file from the Releases page — the broker list is baked in, nothing to install:

• Windows — ..._windows_amd64.exe (run it directly) or the .zip (also has the README and config.example.yaml).

• macOS / Linux — ..._<os>_<arch>.tar.gz; tar xzf it and run ./eraser.

• macOS: the binary is unsigned, so Gatekeeper will block it on first run. Either right-click it → Open → Open, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ./eraser once.

• Windows: the archive contains eraser.exe.

• eraser fill and eraser confirm (browser automation for opt-out forms) need Chrome or Chromium installed; nothing else does.

Build from source (needs Go):

git clone https://github.com/drumandbytes/eraser.git
cd eraser
go build -o eraser ./cmd/eraser

Or install straight from the module path (the broker list is baked in):

go install github.com/drumandbytes/eraser/cmd/eraser@latest

On Windows, build it as eraser.exe (go build -o eraser.exe ./cmd/eraser) — Windows won't run a downloaded file with no extension.

Step 2: Start the Web Interface

./eraser serve

On Windows, run .\eraser.exe serve instead.

Open your browser and go to http://localhost:8080

Step 3: Complete the Setup Wizard

The wizard walks you through entering your personal information (the data brokers need this to find your records) and setting up email. Just follow the prompts.

Step 4: Send Removal Requests

From the dashboard, you can:

• Browse the list of 700+ data brokers
• Send requests one at a time or in bulk
• Track which requests have been sent and their status
• Exclude a broker from sends with one click (and bring it back later) - useful for a broker you'd rather skip, e.g. one that demands ID verification
• Mark a sent request as bounced, so it's retried on the next send
• Download an evidence report of every request and reply (History → Export evidence) for a complaint to your data protection authority
• Fetch the latest broker list (Settings → Broker List)
• Add a broker that's missing from the list (Brokers → + Add broker) - kept on your machine and never removed by a list update

That's it. The whole process takes about 10 minutes to set up, and then Eraser handles the rest.

Setting Up Your Email Account

Eraser sends removal requests from your own email account over SMTP, and can read replies over IMAP. Pick your provider in the setup wizard (or eraser init) and it fills in the servers. You only enter your address and an app password, a separate password your provider generates for apps like Eraser. Never use your main account password.

| Provider | What you need | Notes | |---|---|---| | Gmail | App password (needs 2-Step Verification) | ~500 emails/day | | Proton Mail (unverified) | Proton Mail Bridge running on the same machine, paid plan | Use the password Bridge shows. Bridge's self-signed certificate is accepted because it only listens on localhost. Not yet tested by the maintainers (no Proton account) - please report whether it works | | Fastmail | App password with IMAP + SMTP access | | | mailbox.org | Application password | | | Posteo | Your Posteo address and password | | | iCloud Mail | App-specific password | SMTP is on port 587 (STARTTLS) | | Amazon SES | SES SMTP credentials; the From address/domain verified in SES | Send-only: set up reply monitoring on a separate mailbox. Change the region in the SMTP host if yours isn't eu-west-1 | | Anything else | Choose "Other" and enter the SMTP (and optionally IMAP) server | |

TLS: ports 465 (SMTP) and 993 (IMAP) use TLS from the start. Any other port must support STARTTLS. Eraser never sends your password without encryption.

Outlook.com / Hotmail isn't a preset: Microsoft turned off app-password (basic) authentication for consumer accounts, and Eraser doesn't support OAuth sign-in yet. Microsoft 365 work accounts whose admin enabled SMTP AUTH can try "Other" with smtp.office365.com:587.

Your provider isn't listed or doesn't work? Open a mail provider issue, or add it yourself (see CONTRIBUTING.md).

Daily sending limits: Eraser caps itself at 450 emails per rolling 24 hours by default (options.daily_send_limit), just under Gmail's ~500/day. Other providers have different (sometimes lower) caps, so check yours and lower the limit if needed. Eraser resumes where it left off on the next run, so it's safe to just re-run eraser send until it reports nothing left to send.

Automating it: eraser schedule install has your OS run Eraser every 6 hours. Each run sends to whichever brokers are due (each broker is re-sent 25 days after its last request, within the daily cap) and checks your inbox for replies. Everything stays on your machine; eraser schedule status shows the last run, eraser schedule remove undoes it. The web UI's Settings → Automation card does all of this with buttons, including a "run while this app is open" option for systems without launchd/systemd; on the CLI, eraser auto loops in the foreground instead.

Prefer not to give any tool your email password?

Choose "Skip — I'll send the emails myself" in the setup wizard (or options.send_mode: manual in the config, or pick option 2 in eraser init). Then Eraser never sends anything and needs no credentials:

• The Brokers page shows an Email link per broker (the ready-to-send removal request, with an "Open in mail app" button) and a Mark sent button.
• On the CLI: eraser draft <broker-id> prints one email, eraser draft -o ./out writes one .eml per broker (open them in your mail client), and eraser send --manual walks the whole list one at a time.
• After you send one, eraser mark-sent <broker-id> (or the web button) records it so status, pipeline and export still account for it.

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Let a local AI agent handle follow-ups (experimental)

eraser mcp connects Eraser to Codex over local STDIO. Ask “Handle my pending removal tasks”, review the proposed batch, and approve it in Eraser, on the web UI's Automation page or with eraser mcp approve. The agent can open confirmation links, fill forms, inspect receipts, and save notes and screenshots in the existing Tasks page. Email sending uses your existing settings, templates, limits, and history. Codex supplies the AI; Eraser needs no separate AI API key. This feature is experimental: it should work, but its commands and tools may change in a future 1.x release.

Chrome/Chromium is required for forms. CAPTCHA, login, identity checks, uncertain submissions, and unexpected destinations need your intervention. A completed form means the request was accepted, not that the broker has erased your data.

Tried it? Tell us how it went with the MCP feedback form.

See MCP setup and the fake-data demo for the Codex configuration, how batches are approved, and supported workflows.

For Developers: CLI Usage

If you prefer the command line, Eraser has a full CLI.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/drumandbytes/eraser.git
cd eraser
go build -o eraser ./cmd/eraser

On Windows, build it as eraser.exe instead (go build -o eraser.exe ./cmd/eraser) and run commands as .\eraser.exe <command> - see the note above.

Quick Start

# Interactive setup
./eraser init

# Preview what would be sent (no emails go out)
./eraser send --dry-run

# Send removal requests to all brokers
./eraser send

# Check your history
./eraser status

Commands

| Command | What it does | |---------|--------------| | eraser init | Interactive config setup | | eraser send | Send removal requests (auto-capped at daily_send_limit/day, resumable) | | eraser send --dry-run | Preview without sending | | eraser send --ignore-daily-limit | Send everything in one run, ignoring the daily cap | | eraser send --resend | Force re-send even to brokers within the cooldown window | | eraser list-brokers | Show all 700+ brokers | | eraser status | View history and stats | | eraser status --limit 50 | Show more history | | eraser add-broker | Add a custom broker interactively