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Redact PDF.

The classic redaction failure is drawing a black rectangle over text: the rectangle is a shape, the text is still in the file, and anyone can copy-paste it back out — organizations keep learning this the hard way in public. This tool does it properly: pages with redactions are rebuilt from pixels with the covered areas blacked out first, so the underlying text no longer exists in the output. And because the whole process runs in your browser, the confidential document you are redacting is never uploaded anywhere.

⚠ Redacted pages are flattened to images: the covered content is genuinely gone, but text on those pages is no longer selectable or searchable. Pages without redactions keep their text and quality.

Drop a PDF here, or browse

Files stay on your device — nothing is uploaded.
i. Drop a PDF onto the box above — pages render as a preview.
ii. Drag to draw black boxes over everything that must go; use the page arrows for other pages.
iii. Pages with boxes are re-rendered from pixels with the areas blacked out — the covered text is not hidden, it is gone. Untouched pages are copied exactly.
iv. Download the redacted PDF. Nothing was uploaded.
More tools: Remove PDF metadataSign PDFCompress PDF

Frequently asked questions

Is the text under the black box really removed?

Yes. Redacted pages are rebuilt from a rendered image with the boxes burned in, so the original text simply is not present in the output file. You can verify: try to select or search for the redacted text in the result.

How is this different from drawing a black shape in an editor?

A drawn shape sits on top of the text, which remains fully extractable underneath — the mistake behind most real-world redaction leaks. Flattening the page to pixels removes the text itself.

Is my document uploaded?

No. Rendering, blacking out and rebuilding all happen in your browser. There is no upload endpoint — exactly what you want for the kind of document that needs redacting.

Should I also remove metadata?

Probably — a PDF’s title or author fields can leak information too. Run the result through the Remove PDF Metadata tool for a clean copy.

Embed this tool

Add this free, no-upload tool to your own site with one line:

<iframe src="https://fileanvil.com/embed/redact-pdf/" width="100%" height="480" style="border:1px solid #ddd;border-radius:12px" title="Redact PDF"></iframe>