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HidePDF

Redact PDFs in your browser. Nothing uploads.
100% local · zero uploads

Redact PDFs permanently.
Without uploading anything.

Black out names, addresses, account numbers, signatures. HidePDF burns redactions directly into the page pixels — the original text is destroyed, not just covered.

PDF
Drop a PDF here, or click to choose
Your file never leaves your device.

How it works

Three steps. No accounts, no uploads, no waiting.

STEP 01

Open your PDF

Drag a file into the drop zone, or click to browse. The PDF is loaded straight into your browser's memory.

STEP 02

Draw black boxes

Click and drag over anything you want to hide — names, addresses, account numbers, signatures, anything sensitive.

STEP 03

Download the redacted file

Each page is flattened to an image with the boxes burned in. The original text layer is destroyed. Done.

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Your file never leaves your device.

HidePDF runs entirely in your browser. There is no server upload, no temporary cloud storage, and no telemetry. You can disconnect from the internet after this page loads and redaction will still work. Open your browser's network tab during redaction — you will see zero outbound requests.

Frequently asked questions

What lawyers, journalists, and the privacy-conscious ask before trusting a redaction tool.

Is HidePDF really private? Does my PDF get uploaded anywhere?
No. HidePDF runs entirely inside your browser using JavaScript. Your PDF is loaded into memory locally, rendered locally, redacted locally, and saved locally. No file, no page, and no pixel is ever sent to a server. You can verify this by opening your browser's network tab — you will see zero outbound requests when you redact.
Is the redaction permanent? Can someone recover the hidden text?
Yes, the redaction is permanent. Many tools draw a black rectangle over text but leave the underlying text intact in the PDF — that text can be recovered by copy-paste or by inspecting the file. HidePDF rasterizes each page to an image with the black boxes burned in, then rebuilds the PDF from those images. The original text layer is destroyed. Select-all in the output PDF returns nothing in redacted regions.
Will the output PDF still be searchable or selectable?
No. Because HidePDF flattens each page to an image, the resulting PDF contains pixels rather than text. This is the correct behavior for a redaction tool — if text remained selectable, the redaction would not be secure. If you need a searchable redacted PDF you can run OCR on the output afterward, but the redacted regions will remain unreadable.
What about metadata, comments, attachments, or hidden layers in the PDF?
Because HidePDF rebuilds the PDF from scratch using only the rasterized page images, the output contains no original metadata, no comments, no form fields, no JavaScript, no embedded files, and no hidden layers from the source. If you want to clean metadata on other file types as well, try our companion tool MetadataWipe.
Burning in redactions…
Preparing pages…