Black out sensitive content so it is removed from the file, not just hidden. Free, no uploads.
Use this tool free →NilPDF Redact lets you black out sensitive text, numbers, or images on a PDF page, entirely inside your browser. Any page you mark is re-rendered locally at high resolution with the black boxes (and any notes on that page) permanently baked into the image, then rebuilt as a new page with no text layer, no hidden content, and nothing left over from the original. That means a redacted page can no longer be searched, selected, or copied, the content is genuinely gone, not just covered up. Pages you don't mark are left exactly as they were. Nothing is ever uploaded to a server.
Because it was never really redacted. The most common way to redact is to draw a black rectangle over the text, but that rectangle is only one more drawing instruction layered on top of the page. The text underneath is still in the file, so it can be selected, copied, searched, or extracted even though you cannot see it, which is how supposedly redacted material has repeatedly leaked from court filings. NilPDF does not draw on top of the original page. It renders the marked page to an image with the black boxes burned in, then replaces the page with that image alone, so the covered text is no longer in the file at all.
Your files never leave your device. All processing happens in your browser using WebAssembly (Pyodide). NilPDF has no server, there is nothing to upload to.
Yes. Your files never leave your device. Everything runs in your browser using WebAssembly. NilPDF has no backend server.
Yes. Any page with a black box is re-rendered at high resolution with the box permanently baked in, then rebuilt as a brand new page containing only that image, nothing from the original page carries over. The text under a black box cannot be selected, copied, or extracted afterward.
Not on the pages you redact. Redacting a page flattens it into an image, so text on that page is no longer selectable or searchable. Pages you don't redact keep their original, fully selectable text.