Redact a PDF (safely)
Black out the secret stuff — and we actually remove it, so nobody can peek underneath. 🔒
📖 How it works & FAQClick and drag on a page to draw a black redaction box. Draw as many as you need.
🔒 Why this is safe: the saved PDF contains flattened page images with the boxes burned in — the original selectable text is removed entirely.
What "true" redaction actually means
Drawing a black rectangle over a name in a PDF viewer does not delete anything. The original text still sits underneath the box, so anyone can copy-paste it, run a text search, or open the file in an editor and slide the box aside. Real redaction has to remove the hidden data, not just cover it. This tool does that by flattening each page you touch into a flat image, so the words behind your black boxes stop existing in the file.
When you'd reach for this
Common jobs: blacking out an account number or Social Security number before emailing a bank statement, hiding a home address on a lease you're sharing with a roommate, removing salary figures from an offer letter before posting advice online, or clearing signatures and phone numbers from a contract before it goes to a third party. Anywhere you'd otherwise reach for a marker and a photocopier, this does the digital equivalent — cleanly and at full resolution.
How to use it
- Open your PDF. It loads straight into this page and each page renders on screen for you to mark up.
- Drag a box over anything you want hidden — a line of text, a number, a photo, a whole paragraph. Add as many boxes as you need across as many pages as you need.
- Export the redacted PDF. Every page you marked is flattened to an image so the covered content is gone from the file, not just hidden under a shape.
- Reopen the saved file and try to select or search the blacked-out text as a sanity check — you won't be able to, because it's no longer there.
FAQ
- Can someone recover the text under the black boxes?
- No. Because the marked pages are rasterized to images on export, the underlying characters are discarded. There's no text layer left to copy, search, or peel back.
- Will my redacted pages still be selectable text?
- No — any page you draw on becomes an image, so its text is no longer selectable or searchable. Pages you leave untouched keep their original text layer.
- Does my file get uploaded anywhere?
- No. The whole process runs inside your browser on your own device, which matters a lot when the document is a bank statement or a signed contract. Nothing is sent to a server.
- Is it free?
- Yes, it's free and supported by the ads on the page.