Redact PDF

Open your PDF, then select text or draw a box over anything that has to go; to catch every place a word appears, search for it and mark the results. Review the list of marks and apply. Everything under the marks is removed from the file, and you download the redacted copy.

Removed. The text under each mark is taken out of the page, including hidden text in a scanned PDF that was run through OCR. Image pixels, shapes, links, comments and form field values under the mark are removed too. The black box only shows where something was. Before you can download the file, we check it again to make sure no text is left under any mark.

Yes. Draw a box over anything on a scanned page and the pixels under it are overwritten in the scan itself. Scanned pages are found and their text is recognised as soon as the file opens, so search finds words on them too. If the scan already has a hidden OCR text layer, the text under your box is removed from that as well.

Yes. Built-in searches find email addresses, phone numbers, card and account numbers, IBANs, dates, ID numbers written like 000-00-0000, and web addresses on every page. The results start ticked, so you untick any you want to keep and mark the rest in one step.

Yes. The boxes can be black, white or grey, and you can print a short label such as REDACTED inside each one. Either way the content underneath is removed; the colour and label only change how the box looks.

Yes. Every mark stays pending until you apply: you can move or resize a box, remove any mark, and undo or redo with Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y. Search results are only suggestions until you tick them and press Mark. Nothing in your file changes until you review the list and apply.

No. What you marked is not in the new file, so nobody can get it back. Keep your original if you might need it. The tool never changes the file on your device.

Only what you tick: document properties (title, author, keywords and the XMP metadata), content that sits outside the visible page, scripts and actions, comments and markup, attached files, bookmarks, and hidden layers. Earlier versions saved inside the file and page thumbnails are always discarded. After applying, the result screen tells you if a word you searched for still appears anywhere, such as another page or the document properties.

Rarely, a page is built in a way the tool can't safely take apart, for example because of an unusual font. So that no marked word can survive, that page is turned into an image with the boxes burnt in, and the result screen says which page it was. The rest of the document keeps its real, searchable text.

Redaction runs on our server, so the file is uploaded. It is kept only while you work, for up to 30 minutes, and it is deleted straight away when you choose "Redact another file" or leave the page. It is never used for anything else. A password-protected PDF has to be unlocked first with Unlock PDF.

Yes. Every tool works without paying and without an account. Files can be up to 200 pages and 80 MB, and a run that fails costs you nothing.

No. All tools work without signing in. An account raises your hourly allowance and lets you see what you have processed.