Select the information to redact, then drop your document. The first page is redacted in seconds, no account needed.
Drop your file here
PDF, JPG, or PNG (max 5MB)
*During this demo, your files are securely processed and deleted immediately. Create an account for full redaction and to manage your files and settings.
To redact a PDF online, upload it to Redact PDF AI, choose which kinds of personal data to remove (names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, IBANs, card numbers), review the redactions the AI proposes, and download the result. The output is flattened, so the redacted text is deleted from the file rather than hidden under a black box.
Drop a PDF, JPG or PNG into the box above and the first page comes back redacted in seconds, no account needed. Scanned documents are fine: built-in OCR reads the text first. Files travel over TLS and are processed on EU and Swiss-hosted Azure infrastructure.
Tick the categories that matter for this document — people, emails, phone numbers, addresses, organizations, dates, IBANs, credit cards — and add any words that must always (or never) be redacted.
The AI marks every match on every page. Create a free account to open the Studio editor: remove a false positive, keep a term, or draw a box over something it missed. Your first document is free, up to 5 pages, no card.
Export a flattened copy. Try to select or search for the redacted text: there is nothing left to find, because the page was rasterized and the text layer removed.
Want the long version, including how to do it in Adobe Acrobat and what to check before you share? Read the full guide to redacting a PDF.
Most "redacted" PDFs that leak were made by drawing a black rectangle over text in a PDF editor. The rectangle is an annotation; the text underneath is still in the file and can be selected, copied, searched, or extracted by any free tool. A real redaction deletes the content. Redact PDF AI rasterizes every page and drops the text layer and metadata, so the redacted output cannot be reversed. Before sending any redacted PDF, try to highlight the black areas: if you can select text, it was never redacted.
You choose the categories per document. Anything the AI flags can be kept or removed in the editor before you export. New to this? Read what an AI redaction tool does and how to choose one. Need the reader to still follow who is who? Anonymize the PDF with placeholders instead of black boxes.
Step-by-step guides per data type and document: names, email addresses, IBANs, card numbers, medical records, lease agreements and all redaction guides.
Most free online redactors work like a highlighter: you find and mark every sensitive item yourself. That is fine for a one-page letter and unworkable for a 60-page bank statement or a scanned contract. The difference is who does the finding.
| Redact PDF AI | iLovePDF | Smallpdf | PDF24 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How sensitive data is found | AI detects it automatically across all pages | You select each item by hand | You select each item by hand | You select each item by hand |
| Scanned PDFs and photos | Yes, OCR built in (100+ languages) | Limited | Limited | Limited |
| Output | Flattened, rasterized, no text layer | Permanent | Permanent | Permanent |
| Batch of files | Yes, plus a REST API | One at a time | One at a time | One at a time |
| Where files are processed | EU and Switzerland (Azure), auto-deleted, never used to train AI | Varies | Varies | Germany |
| Free to try | Yes: first page instantly with no account, first document (up to 5 pages) free with a free account | Yes | Yes, with limits | Yes |
Competitor details are from their public product pages as of September 2026 and may change. See our full comparisons of Redact PDF AI with Smallpdf, Adobe Acrobat, Redactable and CaseGuard. See all comparisons.
Yes. Drop a file and the first page is redacted right away, with no account. Create a free account and your first document, up to 5 pages, is redacted and downloadable for free with no card. After that you pay as you go with a 50-page credit pack (half price the first time) or take a plan from US$50 a month for 1,000 pages.
Your file is encrypted in transit and at rest, processed on Microsoft Azure in Europe and Switzerland, deleted automatically (or immediately after download if you prefer), and never used to train AI models. The platform runs on infrastructure holding SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications and is HIPAA-eligible.
No. The output is rasterized and the original text layer is removed, so there is nothing to recover by copy-paste, search or PDF forensics. Only redactions made by drawing a shape over text can be undone, which is why we do not do that.
Yes. Built-in OCR reads the text inside scans, faxes and phone photos (JPG, PNG) in more than 100 languages before the AI looks for personal data, so a scanned contract is redacted as reliably as a digital one.
Use a browser-based redactor like this one. Acrobat Pro’s Redact tool is reliable but needs a paid subscription and you must search for each item yourself; here the AI finds the personal data for you and the export is permanent.
Yes, it runs in any modern browser on macOS, iOS, Windows and Android. If you would rather use built-in tools, read our guides to redacting in Preview on a Mac and on an iPhone or iPad, including where those tools fall short.
Yes. Pseudonymize mode replaces each person, organization or address with a consistent tag such as [Person 1] or [Org 1] on every page, so the document stays readable for a colleague or an AI while the names are gone from the file.
PDF, JPG and PNG. Images are treated like scanned pages and come back as a redacted PDF.
Yes. Signed-in users can upload a whole batch and download the results as one archive, and developers can automate the same pipeline through the REST API.