Before you send a contract, ID copy, or financial statement to someone, there's usually a name, account number, or clause you'd rather they not see. Redacting a PDF removes that content permanently — but most people redact PDFs wrong without realizing it. Here's how to do it properly, for free, without installing anything.

The mistake almost everyone makes

Opening a PDF and drawing a black rectangle over text with an annotation tool feels like redaction — but it usually isn't. That black box sits on a separate layer on top of the original text. The text underneath is still there. Anyone can select it, copy it, or extract it with basic tools. This has caused real, documented leaks in legal and government documents.

Real redaction means the underlying content is gone — not covered, not hidden behind a shape, actually removed from the file.

How to redact a PDF properly, step by step

  1. Open PaperStack's Redact PDF tool — no sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server.
  2. Upload your PDF. Every page renders as a thumbnail.
  3. Click the page containing sensitive content to open the editor.
  4. Click and drag to draw a black box over each piece of text or image you want removed. Make sure the box fully covers the content — zoom in first if it's small.
  5. Click "Done with this page" once you're satisfied, and repeat for any other pages.
  6. Click "Apply Redactions & Download." Only the pages you edited are flattened into images — everything else stays untouched.
  7. Open the downloaded file and try selecting text where you redacted. If nothing is selectable there, it worked.

Why the result works

Once you draw a box, that page is converted into a flattened image before being placed back into the PDF. There's no separate text layer left underneath the box to extract — the pixels you see are all that exists on that page. The tradeoff: a redacted page is no longer searchable or copy-pasteable as text, since it's now an image. Pages you didn't touch stay exactly as they were.

Common questions

Will this work on scanned documents or photos turned into PDFs?
Yes — since those pages are typically already images, redacting them the same way (draw a box, flatten) works the same.
Can I undo a redaction after downloading?
No. Once the file is downloaded, that content is gone from that copy. Keep your original file separately if you might need the unredacted version later.
Does this remove metadata too, like author name or GPS data?
No — this tool only removes what's inside the boxes you draw on the page itself. For hidden metadata, that's a separate step (worth checking your PDF's document properties before sharing).
Is my file uploaded anywhere?
No. Rendering, drawing, and rebuilding the PDF all happen in your browser using JavaScript libraries — your file never touches a server.

Redact your PDF now

Free, private, and runs entirely in your browser — no uploads, no sign-up.

Open Redact PDF Tool →