Redact PDF
Local only — nothing is uploaded unless you save or share it.
Redact PDF pages properly — the words are deleted, not covered, and the file never leaves your computer.
- Drop in the PDF you need to redact
- Drag a box over every name, number or paragraph that has to go
- Press Redact, then download the flattened file
Drag across anything that has to go. Click a box to remove it, or open a page full size to aim precisely.
Nothing marked yet — drag a box over what should be removed.
Every page becomes an image, so the text is destroyed rather than covered. The result cannot be searched or copied from.
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About this tool
There is a specific way redaction goes wrong, and it has embarrassed law firms, government departments and newspapers for twenty years. Somebody sets out to hide text in PDF pages, draws a black rectangle over a name in an editor, and saves the file. The picture looks right. The words are still in there — select across the box, paste into a text editor, and out comes the name. The rectangle was a drawing on top of a document that was never changed. This PDF redaction tool cannot fail that way, because it does not draw on the page. To black out text in PDF documents it removes the text rather than obscuring it. When you redact pdf pages here, every page is turned into an image, the boxes are painted onto the image, and a new PDF is built from those images. There is no text layer left to select, because there is no text layer at all. The document's metadata, its XMP block, any embedded files and any annotations go with it — and a job that blacks out the words but still carries the author's name and the original filename has only been half done. All of it happens in your browser. The document is not uploaded, the boxes are not uploaded, and nothing is stored. That matters more here than anywhere else on this site: a file somebody is redacting is, by definition, a file with something in it that should not be shared. The price of the guarantee, said plainly rather than discovered afterwards: the result is a picture of the document. It is not searchable, the text cannot be copied out of it, and it is a larger file. That is the trade for being certain — and if you need a redacted PDF that is still searchable, no browser tool can honestly give you both.
Frequently asked questions
Is the text really gone, or just covered up?
Really gone. The usual approach — draw a rectangle, save — leaves every word in the file, selectable and copyable, which is how redacted court filings have leaked for two decades. This rebuilds each page as an image with the boxes painted on, so there is no text underneath to recover. Open the result, try to select the blacked-out area, and there is nothing there to select.
Is my document uploaded to your servers?
No, and this tool has no API for that reason. The PDF is read in your browser, the pages are rendered there, and the redacted file is built there. Nothing is sent to us at any point. A document being redacted is the last file anybody should have to upload to a stranger.
Why is the redacted PDF bigger, and why can't I search it?
Because it is now a picture of the document rather than the document. That is exactly what makes the redaction safe — text that does not exist cannot be extracted — and it is the trade this tool makes deliberately. Every page is flattened, not just the ones with boxes, so you do not end up with a file where page four is an image and page five is not and nobody can tell which pages were actually checked.
Does it remove the metadata as well?
Yes. The new file is built from images, so the original metadata, XMP block, annotations, form fields and any embedded files do not come with it. That is worth as much as the boxes: a document that has been blacked out but still names its author, its revision history and the network path it was saved from has leaked most of what mattered.
Can I redact several pages at once?
Yes. Draw boxes on any number of pages before you run it — each page in the preview takes its own, and the count under the preview tells you how many boxes are waiting on how many pages. Every page in the document is flattened when you press the button, whether it has a box on it or not.
What if I draw a box in the wrong place?
Click a box to remove it, or use Clear to start over. Nothing is applied until you press Redact — up to that point the boxes are just marks on the preview, and the file on your disk has not been touched at all.
How do I remove sensitive information from PDF files for good?
To remove sensitive information from PDF documents, drop the file in and cover every piece of it with a box — names, account numbers, addresses, signatures, the lot. To remove text from pdf permanently the page has to stop being text, which is what happens here. If the document will be filed publicly, open the result afterwards and try to select the redacted areas yourself; verifying is cheap and the failure is expensive.
Is this good enough for a court filing or a public records release?
The destruction is real: there is no recoverable text left in the file. What this tool does not give you is a chain of custody, a redaction log, or an exemption code beside each box, which some filing rules require. If a court or an agency tells you which redaction standard it needs, follow the document rather than this page.
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