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Redact PDF
Permanently remove sensitive text. Free, no sign-up.
How to redact PDF
Redaction removes the underlying text, not just covers it — the difference that has embarrassed governments and law firms.
- Open your PDF. Search for the text you need gone.
- Mark what to redact. Matches are highlighted so nothing is missed.
- Apply and download. The content is removed and the result verified.
A redacted page is a new page
Only the pages carrying a box are touched. Each of those is re-rendered as an image 1600 pixels across — about 190 dpi on an A4 page, less on a larger one — the black boxes are painted onto that image, and the image becomes the page. The text you covered is not hidden underneath: it was never written into the new page at all. Pages you did not mark are copied across untouched and keep their selectable vector text.
The cost falls on the marked pages alone. Their text stops being selectable and searchable, any links or form fields on them are gone, and they get heavier. The document is also assembled fresh, so the original's bookmarks and metadata do not come across, which for a redaction is the right default. OCR PDF afterwards puts a searchable text layer back over what you kept.
The copy you did not think of
A box removes what is under it, on that page, and nothing else. The name you are removing is usually also in a running header, in the table of contents, in a footnote, and twice more on page 12 — drawing one box does not find the others, so every page has to be read before you apply. Check the result the quick way: open the downloaded file and search for the word. If the page is now an image, there is nothing to find.
If you only want to mark a passage rather than delete it, that is Annotate PDF, which leaves the text intact underneath. And keep your original: the redacted copy is one-way by design, and no tool — ours or anyone's — can bring the removed content back.
Questions
Is this different from drawing a black box?
Completely, and it is the most important thing to understand about redaction. A black rectangle sits on top of the text, which anyone can select, copy or extract underneath. Real redaction deletes the text from the file. Documents have been leaked exactly this way.
Why is my redacted PDF so much bigger?
Because the pages you redacted are now images rather than text. A page of vector text is remarkably compact; the same page as a 1600-pixel PNG is not. Only the marked pages grew — the rest are untouched. If the size is a problem, run <a href="/compress-pdf">Compress PDF</a> on the result: it rebuilds those raster pages as JPEGs at a lower resolution and keeps whichever version comes out smaller.
Can I redact a scanned PDF, or one I have already run OCR on?
Yes, and OCR is exactly the case to think about. A scan that has been through OCR carries an invisible text layer under the picture — which is where redactions leak when someone just draws a black box. Here the page is rebuilt from scratch, so that hidden layer goes with everything else under the box.
Will the redacted pages still print sharply?
For screen reading and normal printing, yes — about 190 dpi on an A4 page, and proportionally less on a larger sheet, because the raster is 1600 pixels across whatever the page size. It is a raster, so text on those pages is slightly softer than the original vector type if you zoom right in or print at large format. Pages you did not redact are unchanged and print exactly as before.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Every tool on this site runs inside your browser, using the same engine as the Folia desktop app. Your file is read from your disk into your browser’s memory, processed there, and handed back as a download. It never crosses the internet, so there is nothing for us to store, leak or hand over.
Is there a file size limit?
We impose none. The only ceiling is your own device’s memory, which differs from one computer to another — so we read what your browser reports about this machine and show the resulting limit on the page. Light tools like merge and rotate handle far more than heavy ones like OCR, which must render every page. For anything larger, Folia for Desktop has no limit at all.
Is it really free? Do I need an account?
Yes, and no. Every tool is free and unlimited, with no watermark and no sign-up. Ads pay for the site, and your own computer does the work, which costs us nothing. Signing in with a paid Folia plan simply removes the ads.