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Vivek Mistry 👋

I’m a Certified Senior Laravel Developer with 6+ years of experience , specializing in building robust APIs and admin panels, frontend templates converting them into fully functional web applications.

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  • 15 Dec, 2025
  • 344 Views
  • A simple helper to hide emails, phone numbers, and IDs without custom logic.

Protect Sensitive Data Instantly with Str::mask() in Laravel

🚀 The Real Problem

In real applications, we often need to display data without exposing everything:

  • Email addresses
  • Phone numbers
  • Aadhaar / PAN / IDs
  • Credit card numbers

Many developers write custom logic like:

$email = substr($email, 0, 3) . '****' . substr($email, -5);

This is:

  • error-prone
  • hard to reuse
  • inconsistent

Laravel gives you a clean solution.

🎯 The Laravel Way: Str::mask()

use Illuminate\Support\Str;
Str::mask('john.doe@gmail.com', '*', 3, 5);

Result:

joh*****gmail.com

That’s it. Clean and readable.

🧠 Real-World Examples

✔ Mask Phone Number

Str::mask('9876543210', '*', 2, 6);

Result:

98******10

✔ Mask Email Username Only

$email = Str::of('john.doe@gmail.com')
    ->before('@')
    ->pipe(fn ($name) => Str::mask($name, '*', 1))
    . '@gmail.com';

Result:

j******@gmail.com

Perfect for invoices and profiles.


✔ Mask Card Number

Str::mask('4111222233334444', '*', 4, 8);

Result:

4111********4444

🧩 Blade Example

{{ Str::mask($user->phone, '*', 2, 6) }}

No helper functions.

No custom logic.

💡 Why Str::mask() Is So Useful

  • Built-in & reliable
  • Avoids custom string hacks
  • Keeps UI consistent
  • Improves security instantly
  • Perfect for GDPR-style data exposure rules


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