Redact PDF
Mark boxes or whole pages to permanently remove. All processing happens in your browser.
Drop files here or click to browse
Accepts .pdf
How to use this tool
- 1.Drop or select a PDF file into the upload area.
- 2.Click a page, then drag to draw one or more boxes over what you want removed - or toggle "Redact entire page" to black out the whole page.
- 3.Choose Standard or High rasterization quality.
- 4.Click "Redact & Download" - marked pages are rebuilt from a flattened image, so the content underneath is genuinely gone; then click Download to save it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the redacted content actually removed, or just covered up?
Actually removed. Each page you mark is rendered to an image, the black boxes (or the whole page) are painted directly onto that image, and the page is rebuilt from the result. The original page's text and graphics are then deleted from the file itself, not just unlinked from the page list and left inside it. This is different from drawing a black rectangle on top of live text, which looks redacted but leaves the original content selectable and extractable underneath.
What happens to links, form fields, or comments on a redacted page?
They're dropped, along with everything else on that page, because the page is fully rebuilt as a flattened image. Form fields on a marked page are removed from the document's form too, so a filled-in value is deleted from the file rather than just hidden. A field that also appears on a page you didn't mark keeps its box there, but is emptied. If the PDF is tagged for accessibility, those tags are removed from the whole document, because they can repeat the text of a redacted page. Pages you don't mark are otherwise left as they were, with one exception: the text under your boxes is looked for in the document's bookmark titles, in comments on every page, and in link addresses. Where it appears, it's replaced with "[redacted]", a text-box comment showing it is removed, and a link pointing at it is disabled; the success message says how many were changed. The search covers each redacted phrase and its longer words, but only text the page actually contained: a scanned page has no text to search for, and the body text of pages you didn't mark is never changed.
Does redacting a PDF also clean up its metadata?
No. Redact only changes the pages you mark. The document properties (author, software, dates) and any XMP metadata block are untouched. If you need to clear those too, use the Metadata tool afterward.
Will redacting make my file bigger?
Yes, for the pages you mark - they become embedded images instead of text and vector graphics, and image data is bigger. Pages you don't mark are untouched and don't grow at all.
Want to know how we check these answers? How we test
Read next
Why Hiding Text in a PDF Usually Doesn't Remove It
Black boxes and highlighter tools don't delete anything - what actually redacts a document