Redact PDF
Drag rectangles over anything you want hidden. Pages are flattened so the underlying text is permanently destroyed.
About this tool
Permanently black out sensitive content in a PDF. Privvert flattens every page that has redactions to an image, so the underlying text is truly removed - not just visually hidden by a black rectangle that anyone could move aside in a PDF editor.
This matters for legal disclosures, public-records releases, FOIA responses, journalist source protection, and any document where a sloppy redaction could leak the underlying text. The whole process happens in your browser.
True redaction removes content - it does not just cover it. Privvert deletes the underlying text objects, image regions and form fields inside the redacted rectangle and replaces them with an opaque black fill, then flattens the page so the redaction cannot be reversed by selecting, copying or editing the PDF. This is the same approach government and legal redaction tools use, and it is the reason simply drawing a black rectangle in Preview or Acrobat <a href="/blog/pdf-redaction-black-rectangles-do-not-work">does not work</a>.
Features
- Draw rectangles over content to redact
- Pages with redactions are flattened to images for safety
- Multi-page support - redact across the whole document
- Pages without redactions stay as-is (text remains selectable)
- Adjustable redaction color (default black)
- Browser-only - sensitive PDFs never uploaded
- Free and unlimited
How to use it
- Drop in your PDF.
- Draw rectangles over every piece of sensitive content.
- Click Apply.
- Download the redacted PDF.
Everything happens inside your browser using JavaScript and WebAssembly. Your files are never uploaded to a server, never stored, and never seen by us.
Frequently asked questions
No - pages with redactions are re-rendered as images, so the underlying text is no longer present in the file. This is the difference between proper redaction and 'black box on top of text' which can be reversed by anyone with a PDF editor.
Yes. Only pages that have at least one redaction are flattened. Other pages keep their original text and structure.
Use the PDF Metadata tool to clear document properties. This tool covers visible page content; metadata is a separate layer.
Embedded files are not modified by this tool. If your PDF has attachments, remove them in a separate pass with a desktop PDF editor.
Black rectangles in most PDF editors sit on top of the text - the underlying characters are still in the file. Anyone who opens the PDF can select the hidden text, copy it, or remove the rectangle. Real redaction deletes the content first, then covers the empty space.
Yes - document metadata (author, software, edit history) is stripped during the redaction pass. The output is a clean PDF safe to share. For the broader picture, see the PDF metadata guide.