Passwords, permissions and true redaction
Password-protect or encrypt a PDF, remove a password, restrict printing and editing, and redact sensitive content permanently — all offline.
1FileTool can lock, unlock, restrict and permanently redact PDFs without uploading them anywhere. These tools live in PDF Tools › Protect, and the PII workflow lives in Privacy Tools.
Protect your originals first
Replace source is ON by default: the output overwrites the original file and no backup is kept. Before following along, open Settings › General and turn Replace source off, or pick a separate output folder.
Password-protect a PDF
- Open PDF Tools › Password Protect (tool page).
- Drop the PDF, then fill in Password. An optional Owner password field controls who may change the file's permissions — leave it empty if you only need an open password.
- Run it. Anyone opening the result is asked for the password before they can read a page.
Remove Password (tool page) reverses it — drop the protected file and type its current password. Encrypt PDF / Decrypt PDF (encrypt, decrypt) do the same pair of jobs by name.
Restrict printing, copying or editing
PDF Tools › Set Permissions (tool page) applies a permission policy instead of an open password. Tick Allow printing, Allow copying text or Allow editing — unticked operations are blocked in readers that honour PDF permissions. The file still opens without a password; the restrictions sit on the operations, not the door.
Redact so the content is really gone
Blacking out text with a drawing tool only hides it — the words stay in the file and can be copy-pasted out. 1FileTool's redaction is different: affected pages are re-rendered as flat images at 200 DPI, so the redacted content is destroyed, not covered. The result is written as redacted_<name>.pdf.
- Privacy Tools › Detect PII scans a PDF for emails, phone numbers, SSNs, card numbers, IBANs and IP addresses and lists what it found. Scanning is free and doesn't touch your daily quota.
- Privacy Tools › Auto-Redact PII removes everything the scan found in a single pass — a Pro feature.
- Privacy Tools › Verify Redaction re-scans the output and proves nothing sensitive is still extractable — run this before you send a redacted file anywhere.
- PDF Tools › Redact Content (tool page) blacks out a region you mark, using the same re-rendering pass.
If a PDF has no text layer (a scan), Detect PII says so — OCR the file first, or mark regions manually.