Redact PDF — Black Out Sensitive Regions
Drop a PDF and either drag rectangles by hand or have the tool find sensitive patterns (emails, phone numbers, national IDs, credit cards, dates, IBANs, or any custom regex) and redact every match across every page. Each rectangle is drawn as an opaque black box in the saved PDF. For true text redaction (where the underlying text is also scrubbed), flatten the result with Flatten PDF.
Drop your PDF file here
One PDF at a time · drag rectangles, or scan for patterns below
When to use this tool
Reach for it before sharing a contract with another party's pricing on it, a screenshot with someone else's name, or a screenshot with a key visible. Drag a black box over each region — fast, visual, no typing of coordinates.
Step by step
- Drop one PDF. The first page renders with a transparent overlay.
- Pick patterns and click "Scan PDF" to auto-redact every match across every page. Or skip this step and redact manually.
- Drag rectangles over anything else you want gone. Each rectangle becomes a black box.
- Use Page ←/→ to navigate. Boxes on each page are remembered.
- Click "Redact & download". Output is
name-redacted.pdf. To strip the underlying text entirely, run Flatten PDF on the result.
FAQ
How does pattern scanning work?
Each page's text is extracted (via pdf.js, in your browser), the selected regexes are run against it, and a black box is added around every match — exactly where the text lives on the page. The matches are added to the boxes you'd otherwise draw by hand, so you can still add or remove rectangles before saving.
What if a match spans multiple text fragments?
If the PDF stores the matched text as several separate fragments (common when typography is decorative), the tool redacts every fragment that contains part of the match. You may end up with slightly more text covered than the literal match — over-redaction is the safer default.
Is the redaction "true"?
By itself, no — the black box covers the content visually, but a determined reader can sometimes extract the underlying text. To make redaction destructive, flatten the output with Flatten PDF; that turns every page into an image and removes the text layer.
What about scanned (image-only) PDFs?
Pattern scanning needs a real text layer. For pure scans, first run OCR PDF in "Searchable PDF" mode, then bring that result back here.
Can I undo a box?
Yes — the "Undo last box" button removes the most recent rectangle on the current page. "Clear boxes" wipes them all for that page.
Are my files uploaded?
Never — this runs entirely in your browser via pdf.js + pdf-lib. See the privacy policy.