Redact PDFs & images

Redaction has a famously bad track record — not because blacking things out is hard, but because most tools cover information instead of removing it:

• A black rectangle drawn in a PDF editor is usually an annotation sitting on a layer above the text. The text is still in the file — anyone can select it, copy it, or delete the box. Court filings and corporate documents have leaked exactly this way, repeatedly.
• Semi-transparent highlighter or marker tools can be defeated by simply adjusting brightness and contrast.
• Pixelation and blur are partially reversible for text — publicly available tools can reconstruct pixelated characters by comparing them against rendered candidates.

And there's a second, quieter problem: most online redaction tools ask you to upload the document first. The file is sensitive enough to need redaction — and step one is handing an unredacted copy to a stranger's server.

How this tool does it properly

• Pixels are destroyed, not covered. For images, the area under each box is repainted and the file is re-encoded — the original pixel data doesn't exist in the output. There is no layer to peel back.
• PDF pages with redactions are flattened. A redacted page is rebuilt as an image, so no hidden text layer can survive under the box. Pages you didn't touch are copied through unchanged, keeping their quality and selectable text. The trade-off is honest: redacted pages lose selectable text — that's the proof the data is gone.
• Metadata goes too. Image EXIF (GPS, device info) is dropped by re-encoding, and PDF document properties (author, title) are cleared — redacting the page while the filename's author field gives you away would be a half-measure.
• Nothing is uploaded. Like every HandyCompress tool, redaction runs entirely in your browser via your own CPU. Disconnect from the internet after the page loads — it still works. There is no server copy to secure, subpoena, or leak.

Common uses: blacking out your balance and account number before posting a banking screenshot to a forum, hiding the other party's name in a conversation screenshot, sharing a lease or contract with only the relevant clause visible, removing addresses from documents for insurance claims, and preparing exhibits where some parties must stay anonymous.

Sharing photos rather than documents? Metadata can reveal as much as pixels — see our guide on what EXIF data reveals about you, or use the EXIF stripper directly.