Redact PDF
The text is deleted, not covered — and the saved file is re-read to check.
Redact PDF removes sensitive text from the file — the words are deleted from the page's content, not painted over — and verifies on the finished bytes that they are gone before showing you the result. Select text or draw regions; the original never leaves your device.
Redact PDF finds sensitive content by search, by pattern, or by a box you draw, and deletes the matched text from the page rather than covering it. Use it before sharing documents that contain private information. Redact PDF is one of UnboundPDF's 53 free browser-based PDF and image tools: it runs on your own device with no upload, no account and no watermark, and reports what it measured on the output.
How to redact PDF — steps & common uses
What people use Redact PDF for
People removing sensitive details before sharing — names, account numbers, or signatures that must be gone for good, not just hidden.
- Black out account numbers
- Remove names before sharing
- Hide a signature permanently
- Redact confidential figures
- Clear personal data from a form
Wondering what survives an ordinary edit? Read can edited PDF text be recovered?.
How to redact PDF
- Add your PDF; pages render on your device and are never uploaded.
- Click and drag on a page to draw a black redaction box, and click a box to remove it.
- Review the matches, then apply — the text is spliced out of the page and the saved file is re-read to check it is gone.
- Click Apply redaction, then preview and download the redacted PDF.
Good to know: Search, pattern-match or draw boxes; matched text is deleted from the page content and the saved file is re-read to check. A page that cannot be rewritten safely is rebuilt as an image and named in the result. Whether a redaction meets a legal standard is set by the rules that apply to you; the tool removes the text and shows you the verification.
Questions about Redact PDF 7
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. UnboundPDF processes PDFs locally in the browser — documents are not uploaded to a server. We have no backend that receives, stores, or scans your files.
Is the redacted text truly gone, or just covered?
Removed by default — the matched text is deleted from the page's content and the page is rewritten. UnboundPDF then re-reads the saved file to confirm the words are gone in plain, hex and two-byte encodings, and tells you plainly if a page could not be fully verified rather than claiming false certainty.
Which pages get rasterized?
Only pages that can't be handled structurally — for example a page whose text can't be safely rewritten in place. Those pages are rebuilt as an image with the redaction burned in, and the result note names them.
Can someone copy the text from under a redaction?
No, when the page was handled structurally: the text is deleted, not covered, so there is nothing to select or copy. On a page that had to be rasterized instead, there is also no text layer left to copy — the page is an image.
Are unmarked pages affected?
No. Only pages containing a match you apply are touched; every other page is copied through unchanged.
Does redaction remove hidden metadata too?
Only if you tick Sanitize before applying. It clears document metadata, XMP data, embedded files, scripts, annotations and bookmark titles in the same pass — without it, redacting the visible text on a page does not touch the document's Author field or other properties.
What does it mean if the result says “NOT fully verified”?
It means the re-read after redaction could not confirm every page is clean — most often a page that had to be rasterized, or a match split across separate text-drawing operators that the tool reports rather than splices blindly. The note names the page so you can check it yourself.
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How your files are handled
The work runs on your own device, inside the browser tab — so there is no server to send your document to.
- Nothing is uploaded. We have no backend that receives or stores documents, so we cannot see your files during processing or after.
- Your device does the work. Large documents are handled in stages, pages are rendered as you reach them, and each job is checked against your device before it starts — so a long run takes longer on a phone than on a laptop, nothing is queued behind other people's jobs, and you can stop a run at any point without touching your original file.
- No account and no watermark. The output is a clean file you can use anywhere, with no sign-up and no hourly cap.
More edit tools
Other free PDF utilities that work the same way — in your browser, no sign-up.