GhostRedact finds likely PII, blacks it out so the text underneath is destroyed — not just covered — and re-scans the output to confirm no text layer is left. Free, no account, and your PDF never leaves your browser.
When a PDF has to go out with names, account numbers, or Social Security numbers removed, Adobe Acrobat Pro’s Redact tool is the default professional answer. It is a mature, well-documented feature — and it is part of Acrobat Pro (US$19.99 a month on an annual plan in the U.S.); Acrobat Standard and the free Reader don’t include it.
GhostRedact covers the core job for free, in a browser tab. It suggests boxes over likely sensitive data, lets you draw your own, then flattens every page to an image with the boxes burned into the pixels and rebuilds the PDF — so there is no text, vector art, or original metadata left under the black. Afterward it re-extracts the output and checks that no recoverable text layer remains. The PDF is processed on your device and is never uploaded.
Acrobat Pro’s redaction is the benchmark for a reason. You can search for a word or phrase and redact every occurrence, use built-in patterns such as phone numbers, credit-card numbers, Social Security numbers, email addresses, and dates, and mark whole pages. Redaction removes the underlying content while keeping the rest of the page as live, selectable text.
It also goes beyond the visible page. Sanitize Document and Remove Hidden Information strip metadata, comments, attachments, hidden layers, and other content you might not know is there, redaction codes can stamp overlay text such as U.S. FOIA and Privacy Act exemptions onto each box, and Acrobat’s Action Wizard can chain processing steps across many files. For a legal or records team redacting at volume, that toolset is hard to beat.
Free, with no subscription
Redaction is the whole tool, not a paid tier. No account, no trial clock, no watermark.
Auto-detects PII for you
Deterministic patterns find emails, Social Security numbers, credit-card numbers (Luhn-checked), phone numbers, IBANs (checksum-verified), IP addresses, and dates. An optional on-device AI model (BERT-based named-entity recognition) adds person names, organizations, and locations. Custom rules add your own terms or regular expressions — employee IDs, case numbers, client names.
Works on scans, too
Pages with a real text layer are boxed from their exact glyph positions; scanned pages with no text layer are OCR’d in the browser first, so a scanned SSN still gets a suggestion. Every suggestion is opt-in — nothing is redacted until you accept it.
Checks its own work
After applying, GhostRedact re-extracts the output’s text and re-runs the PII patterns. A pass is labeled “no text layer left” — a precise claim: it proves there is no recoverable text, not that every visible item was boxed, so you still review the pages yourself.
Your PDF never leaves the browser
Detection, OCR, and the destructive flatten all run on your device. Optionally, download a redaction certificate — hashes, box counts, and the re-scan result — alongside the redacted file.
Scan before you share
Not sure what’s in the file? The free Compliance X-ray scans PDFs, images, audio, and video for PII and hidden metadata in one pass, then hands you to the right redaction or scrub step.
| Feature | GhostRedact | Adobe Acrobat Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Acrobat Pro, US$19.99/mo (annual plan); not in Acrobat Standard |
| Account | None | Adobe account + subscription |
| Where it runs | In your browser; the PDF is never uploaded | Acrobat Pro desktop app |
| Search and redact a phrase | Yes — custom term and regex rules | Yes |
| Built-in PII patterns | Email, SSN, card, phone, IBAN, IP, date | Phone, card, SSN, email, date and more |
| Name / organization detection | Optional on-device AI model | Search for known names; built-in patterns |
| Scanned PDFs | In-browser OCR finds text to box | Via OCR first |
| Output text stays selectable | No — pages are flattened to images | Yes — only redacted areas are removed |
| Hidden data (metadata, attachments) | Removed by the flatten | Sanitize Document / Remove Hidden Information |
| Post-redaction text-layer re-scan | Automatic, with optional certificate | Not built in as a report |
| Redaction codes / overlay text | No — solid black boxes | Yes, incl. U.S. FOIA and Privacy Act code sets |
| Multi-file workflows | One file at a time | Action Wizard runs steps across files |
Keep Acrobat Pro if the redacted document must stay searchable and selectable. GhostRedact deliberately flattens every page to an image — the simplest way to guarantee nothing survives under a box — so the output is larger and its text can no longer be copied. Acrobat removes only the redacted content and leaves the rest of the page as real text.
Acrobat is also the better fit for high-volume, audited workflows: multi-file Actions, redaction codes and overlay text for legal exemptions, and a desktop tool your IT department already licenses. GhostRedact is for the everyday case — one sensitive PDF, redacted properly, without paying for a subscription or sending it anywhere.
Does GhostRedact really remove the text, or just cover it?
It removes it. Every page is rasterized and the PDF is rebuilt from those images with the black boxes burned into the pixels, so there is no text, vector content, or original metadata left underneath to copy, search, or extract.
How is this different from drawing a black box in a PDF editor?
A drawn rectangle sits on top of live text, which anyone can still copy or extract — the classic redaction leak. GhostRedact destroys the underlying content, and then re-scans the output to confirm no recoverable text layer remains.
Can it find sensitive information automatically?
Yes. Pattern detection finds emails, SSNs, credit-card numbers, phone numbers, IBANs, IP addresses, and dates; an optional on-device model finds names, organizations, and locations; and you can add your own terms or regex rules. Suggestions are opt-in, and you can accept them one by one or all at once.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Detection, OCR, and redaction all run in your browser. The OCR engine and the optional name-detection model are downloaded to your browser on first use; your document is never sent to a server.
Why is the redacted PDF no longer selectable?
Because the pages are flattened to images — that is what guarantees nothing is recoverable. If you need the unredacted parts to stay live text, a tool like Acrobat Pro that removes only the marked content is the better fit.
Does “no text layer left” mean all the PII is gone?
Not by itself. The re-scan proves the output has no recoverable text; it cannot see pixels, so a missed or misplaced box would still show its content in the image. Always review the redacted pages before sharing.
Auto-detect PII, black it out, and confirm no text layer is left. In your browser, with no upload and no subscription.
Redact a PDF free