RemixPDF

Redact a PDF, free — the text is deleted, not covered

Remove words from the file itself rather than drawing a black box over them. Once it is gone, it is gone.

  • Delete words from the file, not a black box over them.
  • Free
  • No signup
  • No watermark

Runs on your device

This tool is being built — the page below is a preview of what's coming.

What you have to hand while you work

Why it works

The words are deleted, not covered.

A black box hides text on screen and leaves it in the file, where copy-and-paste and search both find it. This removes the characters.

It looks for every other instance.

A name usually appears more than once, and one survivor defeats the whole exercise. The sweep finds the rest and asks you to check them.

Marked text is outlined, never blacked out.

A black box is what the other tool does. Looking different is the point, so you always know which one you are using.

The most consequential mistake in this whole category is drawing a black rectangle over a name and believing it has been removed. It has not. The text is still in the file, sitting underneath a shape, and anyone who selects the area and pastes it somewhere gets the original wording back. This has produced real, published, professionally embarrassing failures, repeatedly.

So this tool does the other thing. The characters are deleted from the file. Afterwards there is nothing behind the marks, because there is no “behind” — the words are not in the document any more, not in the search index, and not recoverable from it.

Two design choices follow from that, and both are deliberate. The first is that marked text is outlined, not blacked out, while you are working. A black box is the visual language of the covering tool, and the two must never be confusable at a glance. The second is the sweep: after you mark something, it looks for every other place that looks like it. A name in a witness statement appears in the first line, the signature block, and the address at the bottom, and removing one of three achieves nothing. The sweep finds the others and asks you to confirm them, rather than assuming.

Because it cannot be undone, it confirms before it acts, and it lists exactly what is about to go. Before you download you can always start again from the file you opened; after that, the copy you made is final.

There are two things this cannot do, and it says so at the time. Scanned pages have no text to remove — only an image — so covering is the only option there. And hidden details like the author’s name, the creation date and the original file path live outside the page content; cleaning those out is a separate tool, and worth running before a document leaves your organisation.

How it goes

  1. Open the document.

    Drop it here.

  2. Select what has to go.

    Each piece appears in a list as you mark it.

  3. Let it look for the rest.

    It finds other instances of what you marked so nothing survives by accident.

  4. Remove them, then download.

    It confirms first, because there is no way back.

What you can check for yourself

Watch the network while you work — nothing leaves this device on the default path. Then go offline and keep working — it all still runs. The two-minute checks live at how your files are handled.

Frequently asked questions

Completely. A box is a picture on top; the text stays underneath and is recoverable in seconds. This deletes the characters from the file.

No. That is the point. Before you download, you can start again from the original file — afterwards, the words are gone from the copy you made.

Not from the file this produces. What we cannot control is other copies of the document that already exist elsewhere.

That is a separate thing, and worth doing too — cleaning out hidden details removes the author, dates and the original folder path.

No. A scan has no text to remove, only an image. Covering the area is the only option there, and we say so.

Because a black box means the other tool. Keeping them visually different is deliberate.

No. Removal happens in this browser.

Related tools

Ready? Drop your PDF above and it opens right here.