How to use Redact PDF
- Select the PDF.
- Drag a box over every piece of information to hide; move between pages with ‹ ›.
- Click “Redact & download”.
True redaction, not a black sticker
Drawing a black rectangle in many editors leaves the text underneath selectable. bopdf instead rebuilds every page that contains a redaction as an image at 200 DPI with the black boxes burned in, so the covered text, links and hidden layers are removed. Pages without redactions are kept untouched, and document metadata (author, title) is wiped.
Trade-off: text on redacted pages is no longer selectable. Run OCR PDF afterwards if you need it searchable again.
🔒 Your files never leave your device
bopdf processes your documents locally with JavaScript (pdf-lib and Mozilla pdf.js) inside your browser tab. Your PDF is never uploaded, stored or seen by us — you can even disconnect from the internet after the page loads and the tool keeps working. When you close the tab, everything is gone.
Frequently asked questions
Can redacted text be recovered?
No, the redacted pages no longer contain the original text objects.
Is my document uploaded?
No, redaction happens in your browser — important for sensitive files.
Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. Everything happens in your browser on your own device. Files are never sent over the internet, which makes bopdf suitable for confidential documents.
Is there a file size limit?
There is no fixed limit, but very large files (hundreds of MB) depend on your device memory. On phones, files up to about 100 MB usually work well.