redactiontools

Redact a PDF for free, without uploading it

Drop a PDF. Personal details are found and blacked out automatically, and you can drag over anything else. Redacted pages are rebuilt, so the hidden text is really gone.

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How it works

  1. Step 1

    Drop your PDF. It opens in this tab and is never uploaded.

  2. Step 2

    Check what was found: click a box to keep that text, or drag to cover anything else.

  3. Step 3

    Download the redacted PDF. Pages without redactions keep their selectable text.

settlement.pdf NOTHING UNDERNEATH

Settlement summary

Claimant: Sarah Connor

Account: GB82 WEST 1234 5698

Signed by Kyle Reese on 3 March

Redacted pages are rebuilt, so the hidden text no longer exists.

Nothing left under the black box

Many PDF editors draw a rectangle over text that can still be copied out. Here, every page you redact is re-rendered with the boxes burned in, so the original text is no longer in the file.

Your PDF stays on your device

Most online PDF tools upload your document to their servers. This one runs entirely in your browser: once the page has loaded, it works with Wi-Fi turned off.

Hidden data removed too

The downloaded PDF has no metadata: author, software, dates, attachments and embedded scripts are all stripped.

Questions

How do I redact a PDF without Adobe Acrobat?

Drop the file on this page, check the boxes that were found, and download. You don’t need Acrobat Pro or any software installed.

Can the redacted text be recovered?

Not from pages redacted here. They are rebuilt as images with the boxes burned in, so the text underneath no longer exists in the file. You can confirm it with our Unredact PDF checker.

What does it find automatically?

Emails, phone numbers, card and bank numbers, ID numbers, dates and URLs. Turn on the optional AI model to also find names, organizations and places (English only). It downloads once and runs on your device.

Does it work on scanned PDFs?

Scanned pages have no text layer, so nothing is found automatically. You can still drag boxes over anything you want hidden, and those areas are burned in the same way.

Can it miss things?

Yes. Automatic detection can miss details, and text in form fields and comments is not scanned. Always look through every page before you share.

Unredact PDF

See if a “redacted” PDF still has text hiding under its black boxes that anyone could copy out.

Remove PDF metadata

Strip author names, software, dates, attachments and scripts from PDFs.

Redact text

Hide names, emails, phone numbers, card and bank numbers, IDs and dates in any text.

Page updated 4 October 2026.