Redact PDF
Remove personal data before you send a document. Rather than laying a black box on top, the covered text is taken out of the file.
Add one PDF file to redact.
or drop a file here
Drag on a page to draw a box by hand; press × on a box to remove it.
Files never leave your device. Everything runs in your browser.
How to use it
- Click "Choose a file" or drop the PDF you want to redact.
- Pick the kinds of data to find, and type any names or other words to remove.
- Click "Find and mark", check the marks, and drag on a page to box anything that was missed.
- Click "Redact and save" and download the redacted PDF.
What it does
Finds personal data
Emails, phone numbers, card numbers and US Social Security numbers are found across the whole document and marked.
Your own words too
Type names, addresses or company names separated by commas to find them all at once.
Box anything by hand
For signatures, stamps or photos, drag on the page to draw a box.
Really removed
Pages with boxes are rebuilt as pictures with the boxes burned in, so copying or searching can't bring the text back.
Clears document info
Hidden document info such as author and title can be removed as well.
No upload
Documents with personal data are processed on your device and never sent to a server.
Good to know
Drawing a black rectangle in a PDF editor leaves the text underneath, and it shows up again when someone copies or searches. This tool redraws each marked page as a picture, so the original text data is gone and the redaction can't be undone.
Redacted pages become pictures, so other text on those pages can't be selected or searched either, and the file may grow a little. Pages without marks stay exactly as they were. Scanned PDFs have no text layer, so automatic search won't find anything there; draw the boxes by hand, and always check the marks before saving.
Questions and answers
Can I redact a PDF for free?
Yes. It is free with no sign-up, and the document is never uploaded.
How is this different from drawing a black box?
A box on top leaves the text underneath, which can be copied out. This tool rebuilds the marked pages as pictures so the text is removed.
Will it find everything automatically?
It finds numbers and emails in common formats plus the words you type. Unusual formats or names can be missed, so check before saving and box anything left over.
What happens to other text on a redacted page?
The whole page becomes a picture, so its text can't be selected or searched. Other pages are unchanged.
Does it work on scanned documents?
Automatic search can't read scans, but boxes you draw by hand are removed in the same way.