Redact PDF
True redaction — content removed, not hidden. Free, local, no upload.
Drop files here
or click to browse · paste from clipboard
Accepts .PDF · Up to 1,000 files
How it works
Drop your PDF
Drag and drop, click to browse, or paste from clipboard.
Mark content to redact
Draw rectangles over sensitive areas, or use Find & Redact to search by keyword, email, phone number, SSN, and more.
Apply redactions
Affected pages are rasterised — the original text is removed from every layer of the file, not just hidden.
Verify & download
Output is automatically checked before download. A full redaction log is available as JSON.
Frequently asked questions
No. Everything runs in your browser using WebAssembly. Your file and the content you are redacting never leave your device. The verification pass also runs locally.
A black box drawn over PDF text is a visual overlay. The underlying text is still in the file — anyone can select, copy, or extract it with a standard PDF reader. True redaction removes the content from the file structure entirely. In this tool's output, the redacted data does not exist anywhere in the document.
No. Affected pages are rasterised — converted to a high-resolution image — and the black rectangle is burned directly into the pixels before embedding. The original text is never written to the output file. There is no hidden layer, no metadata, no stream to recover.
Pages with redactions are converted to images during processing. This affects the entire page — all text on that page becomes unselectable, even content that was not redacted. Pages with no redactions are copied as-is and retain selectable text.
After generating the redacted PDF, the tool runs a second pass: it extracts all text from the output and searches for the strings you marked. If none are found, you see "Verification passed." If any were somehow still present, the download is blocked and an error is shown.
Yes. Switch to "Find & Redact" mode and type a word, phrase, or pick a preset pattern (SSN, email, phone number). The tool highlights all matches across every page. You can uncheck individual matches before applying.