Draw a box over a name, a mark, or any sensitive line, and it's actually gone — not hidden under a shape someone could remove later. Each redacted page is rebuilt as a secured image with the box already burned in. Nothing is ever uploaded.
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Redacting happens entirely in your browser's memory. The original file is never sent anywhere.
A lot of "redaction" tools do something deceptively risky: they draw a black rectangle on top of existing text and leave the original text sitting underneath it, unchanged. The text is still there in the file's structure — someone can select it, copy it, or simply delete the rectangle to reveal it. That's not redaction, it's decoration.
This tool does the opposite. You mark the areas to remove with simple boxes, and when you download, each page is rendered fresh as a secured image with those boxes already part of the picture. There's no text underneath the box anymore, because there's no text on the page at all — the whole page has become a single flattened image.
FIG. 1 — Upload → Draw boxes → Burn in → Download
Not everything that needs covering is actually sensitive. Use the right tool for the actual stakes involved.
FIG. 2 — True redaction versus a cosmetic cover
While you're marking boxes, you're working on a transparent layer above the page, exactly like the Annotator tool, so the original page stays untouched and visible underneath as you draw. The difference happens the moment you download: instead of writing those boxes into the existing page alongside the original text, this tool renders the entire page fresh, as a picture, at the quality you choose, and draws the boxes directly into that picture before it's saved.
That means the area under each box was never preserved anywhere in the output file. There's no text object to recover, no hidden layer to toggle off, and no way to select around the edge of the box to reveal what's underneath, because nothing is underneath — the box and the rest of the page are now the same flat image.
Redacting is almost always done on material that's sensitive by definition — names, marks, identifying numbers. Uploading that file to a third-party server before removing the sensitive part defeats much of the purpose. This tool keeps everything local: the PDF you choose, every box you draw, and the final redacted file are all handled inside your browser's own memory using your device's own processing power. The file is never transmitted anywhere else. Closing the tab clears everything from memory, with nothing cached or logged by this tool afterward.
The drawing surface uses the Pointer Events API, so a finger draws a redaction box exactly as precisely as a mouse would, and the canvas blocks the page from scrolling underneath your finger while you're actively drawing. Page navigation and the toolbar are all sized comfortably for tapping, making it practical to redact a multi-page scanned document entirely from a phone between classes.
Because the box needs to fully cover everything sensitive once the page is rendered, it's worth drawing slightly larger than the text itself rather than trimming the box tightly to its edges — a sliver of an uncovered character at the boundary defeats the purpose. Zooming in on the page nav thumbnail or reviewing carefully before downloading is the simplest way to catch a box that's a few pixels short.
Also remember that, unlike the Annotator and Edit tools, redaction here applies to the whole page's text, not just the boxed area — every page you redact comes out as an image, so a document where only one page actually needs redacting will still have that one page lose its selectable text, while untouched pages elsewhere keep theirs if you only redact some pages and not others.
| Approach | Cost | Privacy | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| This browser-based tool | Free | File never leaves your device | Content genuinely removed via image flattening |
| Drawing a shape over text in a basic PDF viewer | Free | Local | Often fake redaction — text remains underneath |
| Adobe Acrobat's dedicated redaction tool | Often paid | Local, but requires installation | True redaction with more granular controls |
| Server-based online redaction tools | Often free with limits | File is uploaded to a remote server | Varies; some are genuinely fake redaction |
| Printing, marking by hand, and rescanning | Cost of paper and ink | Fully local | Truly removes content, but slow and loses a scan generation |
The single most important thing to check with any "redact" tool, including this one, is whether it actually removes the underlying content or just draws over it. This tool is built specifically to do the former. Desktop software like Acrobat's dedicated redaction feature offers more granular control for complex documents, but for the common case of blacking out a name or a mark before sharing a file, this covers it directly in the browser.
This tool relies on standard browser features that work in current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, on both desktop and mobile, with nothing to install. The practical limit on document size depends on your device's available memory, since everything runs locally. Typical exam papers and answer scripts process comfortably at Standard quality; High quality on long documents takes a little longer, since every page renders at a higher resolution before being packed into the final file.
The toolbar, page navigation, and undo/clear controls are all standard, labeled buttons that work correctly with keyboard navigation. The output file itself, however, loses screen-reader accessibility on every page that's redacted, since true redaction here requires converting that page into an image — the same fundamental tradeoff described for this site's other image-based tools, but a necessary one for genuine content removal rather than a cosmetic choice.
Yes. There is no sign-up and no charge for redacting any number of PDF files, with no limit on how many times you use it.
No. The entire process runs inside your web browser, so there is nothing to download or install on Windows, macOS, Chromebooks, or Linux.
No. The file is opened and redacted directly inside your browser's memory and is never sent to any server, so it stays private to your own device.
It's real redaction. Each page is converted into a secured image with your redaction boxes already burned into the picture, so there's no original text sitting underneath the box waiting to be uncovered.
No. Because the covered area becomes part of a flattened image rather than a shape drawn over existing text, there's no selectable text to copy, and zooming in only shows a larger version of the same solid box.
No. Because true redaction requires converting the whole page into an image, every page you redact loses selectable and searchable text, not just the redacted area.
Yes. The undo button removes the most recent box on the current page, and "Clear page" removes every box on that page, both before anything is downloaded.
Yes. The drawing surface and toolbar are sized for touch and have been built to work smoothly in mobile browsers such as Chrome on Android and Safari on iPhone.
Redacting often pairs with other steps in the same workflow. These tools cover the rest, each running the same client-side way, with no file uploads.