Question 1

Why would I use MyPDFBoy instead of Adobe Acrobat for redaction?

Accepted Answer

Adobe Acrobat Pro is excellent but costs $20+ per month. If you need to redact a PDF occasionally, a paid subscription is disproportionate. MyPDFBoy provides the same permanent content-stream redaction for free, with no account required.

Question 2

Does Mac Preview actually redact PDFs?

Accepted Answer

No. Mac Preview's markup tools draw a black rectangle on top of the text — they do not remove the underlying content. Anyone who removes the annotation layer can read the original text. Always use a tool that performs content-stream redaction.

Question 3

Can I use MyPDFBoy on a Mac without installing anything?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Open mypdfboy.com in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox. Upload your PDF, draw the redaction zones, and download the result. No downloads or installations needed.

Question 4

Is the redaction permanent?

Accepted Answer

Yes. MyPDFBoy removes the text and image data from the PDF content stream. Once downloaded, the redacted content cannot be recovered by any tool, including Adobe Acrobat.

Question 5

Does it work with scanned PDFs?

Accepted Answer

Yes. For scanned (image-based) PDFs, MyPDFBoy draws a permanent black rectangle over the image layer and removes any OCR text layer associated with that region.

Redact PDF Without Acrobat

How it works

Frequently Asked Questions