A name, an account number, a signature, a photo you need gone before you share a document.
Drag a box over each thing to remove — on as many pages as you need — and press Redact. The marked areas are cut out of the file itself, not covered up, so there is nothing left underneath for anyone to select, copy or extract.
By ShinobiTools Team · Last updated: August 2026
This actually deletes the content — it does not paint over it. A black box drawn by most tools (and most PDF viewers' own markup) leaves the original text sitting right underneath it — still selectable, copyable, and recoverable with a simple select-all. This tool cuts the marked area out of the page's underlying content before it draws the black box, the same technique government and legal redaction software uses. Your file is only ever handled in memory here, never written to our disk.
A PDF page is really two things layered together: the marks you see, and the underlying content — text runs, image data — that produced them. Drawing a black rectangle only adds a new mark on top; the content underneath is completely untouched and comes straight back out with copy-paste, "select all", or any text-extraction tool.
This tool marks each area for redaction and then applies it — a step that rewrites the page's content stream to actually remove what falls inside the box, before the black fill is drawn. What you download has nothing left to recover in the marked areas, on any page.
Pdf redaction here means the content is cut out, not covered up. Redact pdf online runs entirely in the browser tab. Redact pdf online free means no watermark on the result either. It is a free pdf redact tool and, more specifically, a free redaction tool for pdf: no account, no daily cap, no watermark on the result. Looking for an online redaction tool that works the same on a phone as a desktop? This one does, since it all runs in the browser tab.
Blurring and pixelating are cosmetic filters applied to the existing pixels — several published cases have shown text recovered from a blurred image by reversing the filter. A solid black fill after the underlying content is removed leaves nothing to reverse: there is no blurred version of the text left anywhere in the file to work backwards from.
Whether you think of it as document redaction or a piece of free redaction software, the mechanics are identical to what is described above: mark the area, remove the content, then draw the black box. How to redact pdf for free comes down to exactly that — no separate paid tier gates the removal step. Need to redact documents for free in bulk? Run each one through in turn — there's no cap on how many times a day you use this digital redaction tool, still free. This pdf redaction tool processes every file in memory only, never writing it to disk — the same standard any real document redaction tool needs to meet.
Looking to undo a redaction instead — pull the covered content back out from a PDF someone else marked? That's not something this tool, or a genuine redaction tool of any kind, can do: proper redaction cuts the content out of the file entirely rather than hiding it, the same way this page's own black boxes work, so there is nothing left underneath to recover. If what you actually have is a black box drawn by a lesser tool with the text still sitting underneath it, that's a different, accidental case — not something we'll help undo either.
Your PDF is processed entirely in memory on our own machine and handed back in the response — it is never written to our disk for this tool, and nothing is kept afterwards.
Only need the metadata gone — author name, title, the hidden XMP copy? Remove PDF metadata does just that. Redacting a form you filled in? Flatten PDF bakes the field values in first so they can't be edited back out. Need the whole page trimmed instead of a specific area removed? Crop PDF handles margins. Handed two drafts of the same document and need to know exactly what changed before you decide what to redact? Compare PDF lines up the two versions and names every changed word. Just want to flag something for a colleague to look at, not cut it out for good? Annotate PDF highlights or notes it while leaving the content underneath untouched.
Drop the PDF in, drag a box over each thing you want gone on any page, then press Redact. The download has those areas cut out of the file itself.
It deletes it. Drawing a black rectangle over text leaves the original text sitting underneath, still selectable, copyable, and recoverable with any PDF tool or a simple select-all. This tool removes the marked content from the page's underlying data before drawing the black box — the same technique professional redaction software uses.
Yes. Drag as many boxes as you need, on any page, then press Redact once to apply all of them.
No — visually it is the same solid black rectangle. The difference is invisible until someone tries to select or extract the text: with this tool there is nothing left to select.
No. Only the areas you mark change. Everything else on the page keeps its original text, images and quality.
25 pages per file. There is no account, no watermark and no daily cap.
Both come down to the same steps: drop the PDF in, drag a box over each thing you want gone — on any page — then press Redact. So how to redact a pdf and how to redact on pdf are really the same question with the same answer.
This tool removes the marked content from the page's underlying data before drawing the black box, so how to redact pdf document text safely comes down to using this page rather than drawing a rectangle in a PDF viewer.
Not on this page — real pdf redact means deleting the underlying text and images in the marked area, not just covering them, which is exactly what happens here before the black box is drawn.
Either way — drag boxes across as many pages as you like, then press Redact once to apply every redact pdf document area in a single pass.
Yes — no account, no watermark and no daily limit. Files are handled in memory and never written to disk.
This tool removes the marked content from the page's underlying data before drawing the black box, so there is nothing left to copy or extract — unlike a simple black rectangle drawn on top of the page.
Cropping hides the page edges by moving the visible boundary, but the content is still in the file. Redacting cuts the marked content out of the file's data entirely, so it is gone from that area.
Your file goes to our own machine, is processed in memory, and is never written to disk — so it does not sit on a third-party cloud server at any point.
Yes — that is the most common use here: mark the account number, address or any other line you want gone, and press Redact. A redacted bank statement made this way has that data actually removed, not just covered, before you send it on.
Yes — the content is removed first, then the black box is drawn on top.
Drag a box over it and press Redact; the data is cut out, not just covered.
No — blurring can be reversed; this tool deletes the content before drawing a black box.
Yes, free, no account, no watermark and no daily cap.
Yes — marking an area deletes the underlying content before the black box is drawn.
Yes, the marked area is cut out of the file's data, not just covered.
This tool removes the text from the page data first, so nothing is left to select.
Yes, up to 25 pages per file, free with no watermark.
Yes — in memory only, never written to disk.
Yes, drag boxes on any page, then press Redact once for all of them.
The text is deleted from the content stream before the black box is drawn.
It's removed — the black box goes on top of empty space, not hidden text.
No, the marked content is gone from the file's data, not recoverable.
Yes, that's the free-tier limit per file.
It works on any PDF page; a scanned page needs OCR first if you want it searchable.
A solid black box with nothing recoverable underneath, on that exact spot.
Deleting the marked content from the file's data, not covering it with a shape.
Here it means the content is deleted first — the box is drawn after, not instead.
Drag a box on each page you need, then press Redact once to apply them all.
No, there's no daily cap on how many files you redact.
No account is needed — just drop the file and drag your boxes.
Yes — text and images in the marked area are both removed from the file's data.
Drag a box over each one; both text and image data are removed the same way.
Yes, only the marked area changes — everything else keeps its original quality.
Mark it and press Redact — the text is deleted, not just covered by a shape.
The same way — drag a box over it; image data is removed just like text.
No — the text is deleted from the file's data, not just hidden behind a box.
Permanent — the marked content is cut out of the file, not covered up.
Redact it here — the text is removed from the file's data, not just painted over.
Yes, mark the account number and any other line, then press Redact once.
No — blurred text has been recovered before; a deleted-and-boxed area has nothing left to recover.
It's built in — the redact tool in pdf on this page marks and permanently cuts out the area in one pass, no separate app needed.