You want to share a screenshot — a receipt, an order confirmation, an apartment listing, a bug report — but you don't want to share everything on it. The order number is fine, but your home address, phone, and email aren't. The app's interface is the point, but your username and account ID aren't. The listing photo is what you want to share, but the GPS coordinates embedded in the EXIF data aren't.
This page walks through the workflow for redacting a screenshot or photo on FilePulp: convert to PDF, redact, convert back. It takes about 90 seconds end-to-end, everything runs in your browser, and the exported image has the redacted content physically removed — not blurred, not covered, but gone.
Open your screenshot (PNG/JPG) in FilePulp's Image to PDF tool and export it as a single-page PDF. Takes 5 seconds.
Open the PDF in the Redact tool, draw boxes over sensitive info, export. The text under the boxes is physically destroyed.
Open the redacted PDF in PDF to JPG to get an image back. Post it, text it, or share it safely.
If you can share the redacted PDF directly (attach to an email, upload to a support ticket, send on Slack), you can skip step 3. Most messaging apps and social networks prefer images, so the conversion back is usually worth the extra step.
Redact: Customer name, shipping/billing address, phone, email, order number (if used for support lookup), last-4 of payment method.
Keep: Product name, price, date, merchant — usually the point of the share.
Redact: Your username, email, account ID, session tokens in URLs, any visible auth cookies, IP addresses in error messages, API keys in dev-tools tabs.
Keep: Error message, UI state, page URL (minus tokens).
Redact: Exact street address if you're screenshotting a listing for personal use, other applicants' info if visible.
Also: Strip EXIF data from any listing photos you post — many listing apps embed GPS coordinates.
Redact: Full account numbers (keep last 4), exact balances if not relevant to the share, linked-account info, transaction merchant names if sensitive.
Keep: The specific transaction or balance that's the point.
Redact: The other party's profile photo, full display name, phone number, handle (if private conversation), any PII they shared.
Consider: Their consent — sharing DMs publicly often violates platform terms and can create legal exposure.
Redact: API keys, JWTs, session tokens, passwords (even if masked — length reveals info), production hostnames, internal IPs, environment variables, bearer tokens in headers.
Keep: Commands, output structure, error text without secrets.
Redact: Driver's license number, full address, DOB, signature, barcode (often encodes the license number), magnetic strip visual. If sharing for age verification: keep DOB, redact everything else.
Also strip: EXIF data, which often contains GPS coordinates from your phone. Use FilePulp's EXIF Remover before sharing, even if the image itself is fine.
The built-in blur/pixelate tools in macOS Preview, iOS Markup, Android Gallery, and most phone photo editors can often be partially reversed by AI de-blurring models or by attackers who know the font and approximate character set. Pixelation with small block sizes has been shown to be partially recoverable for known-format text (phone numbers, license plates, serial numbers). Solid black boxes are the only reliably irreversible visual redaction — once a pixel is pure black, no post-processing can recover what was there. FilePulp's redaction produces solid black boxes, not blur.
Start with Image to PDF, then the Redact tool. Whole workflow runs in your browser — nothing uploaded.
Step 1: Image to PDF →Photos from phones usually carry EXIF metadata including GPS coordinates, the device model, and the time the photo was taken. Redacting visible content does not remove this metadata — you need to strip it separately. Use FilePulp's EXIF Remover on the final image if it's going to be posted publicly, especially for real estate photos, property damage claims, or anywhere the location could reveal where you live.
Screenshots often contain the most context-rich sensitive data you own: your address, your friends' names, your messages, your bank balances, your dev-environment secrets. Uploading a screenshot to a "free online editor" before redacting means the unredacted version briefly exists on someone else's server.
FilePulp's workflow keeps everything client-side. The image-to-PDF conversion runs in your browser using the Canvas API. The redaction tool uses pdf.js and pdf-lib. The PDF-to-JPG conversion also runs in-browser. At no point does any file data travel over the network. Verify in DevTools → Network if you want.
On FilePulp: convert your screenshot to a PDF (Image to PDF), redact the PDF (Redact tool), then convert back to an image (PDF to JPG). All three steps run in your browser — your image never leaves your device. About 90 seconds end-to-end.
No. When you export from FilePulp's redact tool, each page is flattened to a high-resolution image. The original content under your redaction boxes is physically destroyed — not hidden, not covered. Copy-paste, text search, image analysis, and EXIF inspection all fail to recover the redacted areas.
At minimum: home or street-level address, full names of private individuals, phone numbers, email addresses, account numbers (keep last 4 if relevant), license plates, employer info (if not already public), IP addresses in error messages, session tokens and API keys in developer-tool screenshots, and payment method details from receipts. For photos, also strip EXIF GPS metadata separately with the EXIF Remover.
Not reliably. AI de-blurring tools can recover partially-blurred text, and pixelation has been shown to be partially reversible for known-format data. Solid black boxes are the only visual redaction that's genuinely irreversible — once a pixel is pure black, there's nothing to recover. FilePulp's tool produces solid black boxes, not blur.
Your operating system's built-in markup tool (macOS Preview's Annotate, Windows Snip & Sketch, iOS Markup) can draw solid black rectangles on an image — which is functionally secure if you save the image as a flattened PNG/JPG (not as a layered format). The FilePulp PDF workflow has two advantages: it works across devices and doesn't depend on your OS, and the exported file has no hidden metadata or layers that could leak the original.
No. Every step of the workflow runs in your browser. No image data is ever transmitted to FilePulp or any server. Open DevTools → Network before using any of the tools — you'll see zero outbound requests carrying file content.
3 tools, 90 seconds, zero uploads. Your screenshot stays on your device.
Start with Image to PDF →Bank Statements · Tax Documents · Medical Records · Legal Filings & Contracts