Redact a PDF on iPhone

How to redact a PDF on iPhone

1. Scan the document with Scanfone, or import the PDF or photo you want to share.
2. Open the edit tools and choose Redact.
3. Mark each area you want to hide, such as an account number, address or ID number.
4. Go through every page and check that nothing private is left visible.
5. Save the redacted PDF and share that copy.

What redacting a PDF means

To redact a document is to hide information before someone else sees it. Lawyers do it with black boxes over names. You probably need it for more everyday reasons: sending a payslip to a letting agent, a bank statement to prove an address, a copy of your ID to a new employer, or a medical letter to an insurer.

Very often the person asking needs one or two details and the document holds twenty. Redacting lets you share the useful part and keep the rest to yourself. It's the polite, digital version of putting your thumb over the bit you don't want read.

What people usually hide

• Bank statements: account numbers, card numbers and the transactions that aren't relevant.
• Payslips: national insurance or social security numbers, tax codes, employee IDs.
• ID cards and passports: document numbers or your photo when only your name and date of birth are needed. See the ID card scanner and passport scanner.
• Letters and bills: your home address, phone number or a reference number.
• Receipts and invoices: card digits and loyalty numbers before you send them for expenses. See the receipt scanner.
• Contracts and forms: other people's personal details that you don't have a reason to pass on.

Redact a PDF for free, on your phone

In Scanfone, redact is a free edit tool. You mark the areas you want hidden and save a copy to share. There is no paywall when you save, no ads and no account. Many scanner apps let you do the work and then ask for money at the export step; Scanfone doesn't.

Privacy is the point of redacting, so it matters where the work happens. In Scanfone, scanning and text recognition happen on your iPhone. Nothing is uploaded unless you turn on Pro sync, and there are no ads, no tracking and no analytics. You aren't sending your bank statement to a website to have your bank details hidden.

Good habits for safe redaction

Redaction only protects you if nothing slips through. A few habits help:

• Check every page. Account numbers like to appear twice, often in a header and again in a footer.
• Cover a little more than the text. Leave a margin around numbers so no edge of a digit peeks out.
• Share the redacted copy, not the original. Keep the original in the Safe, a folder locked with a PIN and Face ID, if you need it later.
• Search the result. Scanfone's OCR text recognition makes PDFs searchable. Before you send, search the redacted copy for the number you hid to make sure it doesn't come up.
• Send only what was asked for. If they need one page, split the PDF and send that page instead of the whole document.

Combine redaction with other tools

Redaction is usually one step in a short chain. You might scan an ID with the front and back on one page, redact the document number, add a watermark such as "For rental application only", and then compress the PDF so it fits an upload form. All of these tools are free in Scanfone.

Free PDFs get one small line under each page that reads "Scanned free with Scanfone"; there is no watermark over your content. Scanfone Pro removes the line and adds sync and a 1 TB cloud backup, for $2.99 the first year and then $19.99 a year.

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