Redact a PDF without uploading it
True redaction — text is destroyed, not hidden. With a verification report.
Processed on your device — nothing is uploaded. Works offline.
Redacted pages are rebuilt as flat images — the underlying text is destroyed, not hidden. The output is then re-scanned and you get a verification report. Always review the result before distributing it.
How to redact a PDF without uploading it
- 1Choose the PDF. The first page renders so you can see what you're working with.
- 2Type a name, number or phrase and click Mark all matches: every occurrence on every page gets a box. Or drag on the page to draw boxes by hand, which is what you'll do for scans.
- 3Choose a mode: rebuild only the marked pages (other pages keep their selectable text), or flatten the whole document.
- 4Click Redact & verify. The tool re-opens its own output, checks the text is really gone, and shows you the report before you download.
Every step runs in this tab. The site has no upload endpoint, and the page's security policy forbids the browser from contacting any other server — see how that is enforced.
When you'd use it
Court filings and discovery
Names, account numbers and addresses that must not appear in the public record.
HR and medical records
Sharing a file with one person's details removed, without the whole record leaving your machine.
Documents for suppliers or journalists
Hand over the substance and keep the identifying details.
Good to know
- Redacted pages are rebuilt as images. In the default mode every other page keeps its text; Flatten converts the whole document.
- Document metadata — title, author, XMP — is stripped from the output as part of the run.
- A scanned PDF has no text layer, so search finds nothing there; draw the boxes by hand and use Flatten.
Don't trust us — test us
“Your files never leave your device” is a claim every PDF site makes. Here it is checkable in under a minute, three different ways:
- Watch the network.Open your browser's developer tools, switch to the Network tab, then run the tool. The only requests you will see are the site's own files — none of them carries your document — and once the app is cached there are no requests at all.
- Pull the plug. Load this page, turn off your wifi or switch on airplane mode, then use the tool. It keeps working, because there is no server involved and nowhere to upload to.
- Read the headers. The response headers for this page include a Content-Security-Policy with
connect-src 'self': the browser itself refuses to send anything to another host, whatever the code asks.
The full privacy model, including what we can't protect you from →
Guide
How to redact a PDF without uploading it
Uploading a document to redact it is backwards: the whole point is that the contents are sensitive. How to do it locally, and why a black rectangle is not a redaction.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from drawing a black rectangle?
Most tools draw a black box over the text — the text is still in the file and can be copied out. This has caused real legal scandals. PDFAirlock rebuilds redacted pages so the underlying text ceases to exist, then re-scans the output to prove it and shows you the verification report.
What does the verification report check?
Three things: redacted pages contain zero extractable text, your search terms no longer appear anywhere in the document — if one survives on a page you didn't mark, the report names that page — and document metadata (author, title, XMP) has been stripped.
Is redacting confidential documents in a browser safe?
That's the point of this tool: the document never leaves your device. There is no server to trust. Load the page, turn off your wifi, and redact — it works, and you can watch the network tab stay empty.
Does it work offline?
Yes. After your first visit the whole app is cached by a service worker, so the page loads and every tool works with no connection at all. Load the page, switch on airplane mode, and carry on.
Is there a file size limit?
No hard limit — your device's memory is the ceiling. Files up to a few hundred MB work well on a typical laptop. Very large files may be slow or fail on low-memory devices; nothing is ever truncated silently.
Do I need to create an account?
No. No account, no email, no cookies. The free tools are simply free.
Which browsers work?
Current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, on desktop and on phones. Phones have less memory, so very large files are better handled on a laptop.