“Discretion is the better part of valour.”
Smart Redact Online
Let AI read the document and find the personal information for you — names, emails, phone numbers, ID numbers — then confirm what to remove and have it permanently redacted.
How to use Smart Redact online
- 1
Upload your files
Drag and drop or click to select your file(s). Uploads go directly to encrypted cloud storage over HTTPS. (PDF)
- 2
Run the tool: Smart Redact
Processing happens instantly in the cloud — no software to install, works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.
- 3
Download the result
Get your processed file via a secure temporary link. All files are deleted automatically about a day after upload.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from Redact PDF?
Redact PDF removes exactly the terms you type, so it depends on you already knowing every name and number in the file. Smart Redact scans the document first and proposes what it found, which is what you want on a long contract or a discovery set where one missed phone number defeats the whole exercise.
Does it redact automatically without asking me?
No — and that's deliberate. It presents everything it detected as a checklist and nothing is removed until you confirm the selection. AI detection is a strong first pass, not a substitute for review, so you stay in control of what actually gets removed.
Is the redaction itself as thorough as Redact PDF?
It's identical — the confirmed terms go through the same engine, which covers each match and then flattens the pages so the underlying text is genuinely gone rather than merely hidden.
What does it detect?
Personal and identifying information: people's names, email addresses, phone numbers, and identification or account numbers. Always review the proposed list against your own knowledge of the document, especially for domain-specific identifiers it may not recognize as sensitive.
How does it handle very long documents?
The document is scanned in chunks rather than only its opening pages. If a file is long enough that even that has a limit, the review step says so explicitly and tells you how much was read — so "nothing found" never quietly means "nothing was looked at". Scanned pages with no text layer aren't readable either; run OCR PDF first.
Does this need an account?
No — you can run it signed out. It runs on credits like every other tool: everyone gets a daily allowance, signing in raises it, and a paid pass grants a prepaid pack. The AI scan is charged at the same rate as the other AI tools, and the redaction that follows costs a little more on top, so a signed-out visitor gets about one full scan-and-redact per day. Signing in raises the allowance.