PDF redaction (true delete)

Drawing a black box on a PDF is not redaction. Most tools just stack a black rectangle over the text while the underlying text objects stay intact — anyone can select-all, copy, or run a parser to recover what you thought was hidden (this is exactly how the Manafort and Epstein files leaked). This tool rasterizes any page that has a redaction and burns the black bars into the pixels, so the covered text is physically gone. Metadata is cleared by default. Everything runs locally in your browser; your file is never uploaded.

How to use PDF redaction (true delete)

1. 1Drop or pick the PDF to redact — it stays on your device, nothing is uploaded
2. 2Drag to select the areas to black out; you can mark several boxes across pages
3. 3Click "Redact & export" — pages with redactions get rasterized with the bars burned in
4. 4Open the output yourself and copy / select-all to confirm nothing is recoverable

Why this tool

We rasterize to truly delete the text under the bars instead of drawing boxes, and we strip metadata by default — fixing the classic Adobe trap of running Redact but forgetting Sanitize. Redacted pages lose their searchable text layer, which is the necessary cost of real redaction.

FAQ

Why can't I search the text on a redacted page anymore?

Because we turn that page into an image with the bars burned into the pixels — the underlying text objects are physically gone. That is precisely what separates real redaction from "drawing a box." Pages without redactions keep their text.

Is the text under the black bar really deleted?

Yes. Once the page is rasterized, the original text objects no longer exist, so copy, parse, and OCR all come back empty. We still recommend you verify by copy-pasting the output once.

Are my files uploaded to a server?

No. There is no file-processing server here. Everything happens in your browser and works offline.