Redact PDF
Permanently black out confidential text and images in a PDF.
Remove sensitive information from a PDF
Clean a PDF before you share it: hidden data such as the author, editing history, attachments and photo locations is removed, and personal details found in the text can be blacked out for good.
Sensitive information removed
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How to remove sensitive information from a PDF
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Step 1: Select or drop your PDF.
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Step 2: Choose what to black out in the text, add your own words if needed, and decide whether to keep comments.
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Step 3: Click Remove sensitive info and check the cleaned file before sharing it.
What a PDF says about you
A PDF often carries more than what you see on the page: the author's name, the software and dates used to create it, earlier versions of edited content, reviewers' comments, attached files and, in photos, the camera and GPS location. All of this travels with the file when you send it.
Use this tool before publishing a document, answering a request for information or sending files to someone outside your organisation. It also finds email addresses, phone numbers, IBANs and card numbers in the text and removes them for real.
What exactly is removed?
Document properties and XMP metadata, JavaScript and actions that launch programs or send data, embedded files, XFA form data, page thumbnails, private application data, EXIF, GPS and IPTC data inside images, and every object left over from earlier edits. Comments and markup are removed unless you choose to keep them; links and form fields stay.
Personal data and your own words are detected in the text and redacted the same way Redact PDF does it: the pages concerned are rebuilt as images with black boxes, so the content can't be copied or recovered. Text inside scanned pages can't be detected, so run OCR first, and always review the result.
Frequently asked questions
Which personal data is detected automatically?
Email addresses, phone numbers, IBANs and payment card numbers. Add names, addresses or case numbers in the words field to black them out too.
Why are some pages no longer selectable?
Pages where something was blacked out are rebuilt as images so the hidden text no longer exists in the file. Pages without redactions keep their selectable text.
Will the document look different?
Only where personal data was blacked out, and where comments were removed if you chose to. Metadata and other hidden data are invisible, so removing them doesn't change the pages.
Is my file stored?
No. The upload is deleted right after processing. The cleaned PDF is available for 30 minutes, then deleted automatically, or immediately with Delete now.
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