Redact sensitive information from a PDF

Draw a box over anything sensitive and it's genuinely gone from the file, not just covered — the page is rebuilt so there's no text underneath the mark to copy, search or recover. Redaction runs entirely in your browser, which matters more here than almost anywhere else on the site.

Redact PDF

draw a box · page rebuilt as an image, not covered

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How to Redact PDF

Add your PDF. Drag the file onto the drop zone. Every page renders as a preview you can mark up.
Draw over what to redact. Click and drag a box over any text or image you want removed, on any page. Add as many as you need.
Adjust if needed. Undo the last mark or clear a page entirely before committing to anything.
Redact and download. The marked pages are rebuilt with the covered content genuinely deleted, then the file downloads.

Why a black box usually isn't real redaction

The most common redaction mistake is drawing a black rectangle over text in a PDF editor and calling it done. The rectangle is a new shape added on top of the page — the text underneath is completely untouched in the file's own structure. Select it, copy it, or open the PDF in a tool that ignores the rectangle, and the "redacted" text is right there. This has caused real, public leaks of information that was meant to be permanently removed.

How this tool actually redacts

Each page is rendered to a bitmap image, the marked areas are painted solid black directly into the pixels, and the document is rebuilt from those images rather than the original text-based pages. There is no longer a text layer underneath the black boxes to select or search — because there's no text layer for that page at all anymore.

The trade-off is real and worth knowing about: since every page becomes an image, text elsewhere on the page — the parts you didn't redact — is no longer selectable or searchable either. That's the cost of a redaction that actually holds up. If you only need to search for and remove personal data automatically rather than mark it by hand, Auto-Redact PII uses the same underlying technique with detection built in.

Frequently asked questions

Is the text under a redaction actually removed, or just covered?

Actually removed. The page is re-rendered as an image with the marked areas painted over before rebuilding, so there is no text layer left underneath a redaction to select or extract.

Will the rest of the page still be selectable text?

No — once a page has any redaction applied, that whole page becomes an image, so no text on it is selectable afterward. That's what makes the redaction itself irreversible rather than a rectangle sitting on top of live text.

Are my files uploaded to a server?

No. Every step — rendering, marking, and rebuilding the file — happens entirely in your browser.

Can I undo a redaction after downloading?

No, and that's the point. Download a copy you're sure about, and keep the original file if you might need an unredacted version later.

Does this work on scanned PDFs?

Yes — since redaction works on the rendered image of the page either way, it makes no difference whether the original page was real text or already a scan.

How is this different from just drawing a rectangle in a PDF editor?

A rectangle added by most editors sits on top of the page's existing text, which is still present underneath and recoverable. This tool rebuilds the page as an image with the marked area actually painted out, so there's nothing left underneath to recover.