Redact PDF
Permanently remove sensitive text, PII, or regions.
Free · No sign-up · Files deleted in 1 hour
How to Redact PDF
- Upload your PDFDrag it in or import from Drive / OneDrive.
- Mark what to removeDraw boxes on the page, search for exact text, or auto-detect PII like SSNs and emails.
- Redact & downloadThe content is permanently removed from the page, along with hidden copies in form fields, comments, link addresses, document properties and attachments.
Redact PDF Online — Permanently Remove Sensitive Text, Free
Remove sensitive information from a PDF three ways: draw black or white boxes over any area, search for and redact an exact word or phrase everywhere it appears, or auto-detect common PII — SSNs, credit-card numbers, email addresses, phone numbers — and strip it in one pass.
This is true redaction, not a visual cover-up. The marked content is deleted from the page's underlying data, not painted over with a box someone could remove or select the text out from underneath. A PDF also carries text in places that are not the page — form-field values, comment text, the address behind a link, the document properties under File → Properties, and attached files — and redacting the page does not reach those, so Dudle strips them in the same pass and tells you what it removed. Turn that off if you need the comments or attachments kept.
No sign-up is required. Files are processed securely, and both the upload and the redacted PDF are deleted automatically after an hour. Redaction runs in the browser, on files up to 50 MB.
- Draw black or white boxes over any area
- Search-and-remove an exact word or phrase across the whole document
- Auto-detect PII — SSNs, credit cards, emails, phone numbers
- Content is genuinely deleted, not just covered
- Hidden copies go too — form fields, comments, link addresses, document properties, attachments
- No sign-up; original and redacted copy are both deleted after an hour
Frequently asked questions
How do I redact a PDF for free online?
Upload your PDF, then draw a box over what to remove, search for an exact word or phrase, or turn on auto-detect for PII like SSNs and emails — Dudle deletes the marked content and hands back a redacted PDF, free with no sign-up.
Is redaction in a PDF permanent, or can it be reversed?
It's permanent. Dudle doesn't just draw a box over the top of the text — it deletes the underlying content from the page itself, so there's nothing left underneath to recover by copying, selecting, or extracting the file's raw content.
Can redacted text still be found by searching or copying afterward?
No — once a region is redacted, the text is gone from the page's content, not hidden behind an overlay. Searching or copy-pasting over that area returns nothing, because there's nothing left there to find.
Does redacting the page remove it from the file's properties and comments too?
Yes. Text on the page is only one of the places a PDF stores it — the same string can also sit in a form field, in a comment, behind a link, in the document properties, or inside an attached file, and redacting the page does not touch any of those. Dudle removes them in the same pass and lists what it took out, so a document isn't left with the redacted value still readable under File → Properties.
Does it automatically find things like Social Security numbers or emails?
Yes — auto-detect mode scans the whole document for common PII patterns (SSNs, credit-card numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, and a few others) and redacts every match in one pass, so you don't have to hunt for each one by hand. Separators are optional, so 123456789 is caught as well as 123-45-6789; card numbers are checked against their own check digit so ordinary reference numbers aren't redacted by mistake.