Redact PDFs. For real.
A black box drawn over text is not redaction — the words underneath can still be copied out. Redactor Online permanently destroys the content you mark, and your files never leave your device.
No uploads. Provably.
Everything runs in your browser — your document is never sent anywhere, and the whole app keeps working with your network disconnected. Open your browser’s network tab and watch: no file data leaves this page. The FBI has warned about malicious online file tools — the safest upload is the one that never happens.
True redaction, not a cover-up
Court filings have leaked names because someone drew a rectangle over text and the text was still there. Redactor Online rebuilds each page with the marked content physically removed — there is nothing under the black box to find.
Metadata stripped
Author names, tracked edits, hidden annotations, embedded scripts and attachments — none of them survive. Your output is a clean document containing exactly what you see, nothing else.
Firms & enterprise: need an offline, installable edition for your whole office? Email [email protected]
Common questions
How can redaction be “true” or “false”?
Most PDF tools add a black rectangle as an annotation layered on top of the text. The text is still in the file — select-all, copy, paste reveals it. True redaction removes the underlying content itself. Redactor Online guarantees this by rebuilding every page as a flattened image after the marked areas are destroyed.
Does it work on scanned documents?
Yes. Text in an image-only or scanned PDF is recognised right in your browser — the OCR engine is served from this site, so even scanned documents never leave your device. Search and one-click PII detection then work on them just like a digital PDF.
Is my file really not uploaded?
Really. There is no server to upload to — this page is static files. You can disconnect from the internet after loading the page and everything still works.