MaskwiseIs your PDF really redacted?
Drop a PDF and we’ll tell you whether any text is left under the black boxes. Free, no sign-up and nothing uploaded: the PDF never leaves your browser.
Don’t have one at hand? Try this badly redacted contract (invented data).
Maskwise redacts for real. It removes what you hide, strips the metadata and reads every copy again to check that what you marked is gone. It runs on your Mac, offline.
What it checks
- Text under black boxes: rectangles drawn on top, text highlighted in black, white text on a white background or invisible text layers.
- What travels with the file: author, title, subject and keywords.
- Comments, attached files and form fields still inside the PDF.
How it works
It draws every page as it looks and looks for every piece of text the PDF carries in that picture. Where a word should be and there is only one flat colour, the word is in the file even though nobody can see it, and anyone can select and copy it. Everything happens in your browser: the PDF is not sent anywhere.
What it can’t see
It doesn’t read what is inside pictures, such as a scanned document, and it is no substitute for your own review. Why this happens and how to redact properly: the black box mistake.