Redact PDF
Remove sensitive content for good, not just cover it.
Runs in your browser
Drop a PDF to redact
or tap to beginAny size. Handled on your device.
How it works
- 1Open the document and find what has to be removed.
- 2Draw a box over each piece of sensitive content.
- 3Review every marked area — redaction cannot be undone after export.
- 4Export the redacted PDF.
What this does to your file
Redacted pages are rebuilt rather than covered up: the page is rendered with the marked areas painted out and written back as new page content, so the hidden text is no longer present in the file and cannot be recovered by copying or searching it.
Common questions
Is my file uploaded to a server?
- No. The page loads a PDF engine into your browser and the document is read from disk by that engine. There is no upload endpoint, and once the page has loaded you can disconnect from the network and the tool still works.
Is this different from drawing a black rectangle?
- Yes, and the difference matters. A black rectangle sits on top of text that is still in the file and can be selected or extracted. Here the affected pages are rewritten so the covered content is gone.
What happens to the text layer on redacted pages?
- Those pages are rebuilt from a rendered image, so their text is no longer selectable. Run OCR afterwards if the remaining text needs to stay searchable.
Does it also clear the document metadata?
- No. Title, author and keywords live outside the page content — use the Metadata tool to clear those separately.