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Hide your Aadhaar number in a PDF

Not just a black box over the text — your browser rebuilds the PDF as an image so the number is actually gone. Nothing uploaded. Free forever.

Why a black box in a PDF editor is not enough

This is the single most important thing to understand about redacting a PDF, and it traps people constantly. When you open a PDF in a normal editor and draw a black rectangle over your Aadhaar number, you have added a black shape on top of the page — but the original digits are still sitting underneath, in the document's text layer. Anyone who receives that PDF can select the area and copy-paste the number out, or run a command-line tool like pdftotext, or simply delete the black box in their own editor. The number was never removed; it was covered. For an Aadhaar number, that is a false sense of safety that is arguably worse than doing nothing, because you believe you are protected when you are not.

DocRedact.in does it differently. It renders every page of your PDF to an image, draws the black rectangles onto that image, and then builds a brand-new PDF in which each page is just that flattened image. The rebuilt PDF has no text layer at all — there is nothing left to copy, paste, or extract. The masked digits are genuinely gone from the file, not hidden behind a shape.

How to hide the Aadhaar number in your PDF

  1. Drop your PDF into the tool above (or tap to pick it from your files on a phone). Up to 20 MB and 10 pages, subject to a rasterized pixel budget; JPG, PNG and WebP work too.
  2. Your browser reads each page, runs Tesseract OCR on it, and looks for a 12-digit Aadhaar number, checking each candidate with the Verhoeff checksum. This reduces false positives but does not prove a detected region is an Aadhaar number. It also looks for probable UIDAI QR codes, faces, PAN numbers and passport MRZ regions.
  3. Review the detections. Each one is a checkbox — the first 8 Aadhaar digits, the probable UIDAI QR, the photo. Confirm what should be covered and switch off any false positives. Other QR codes are not selected by default.
  4. Download. The tool flattens each page to an image and writes a new image-only PDF named [original]_redacted.pdf, entirely in your browser.

For multi-page PDFs, detection runs on every page up front and the preview lets you move through pages with prev/next, so you can confirm each page before downloading.

If your eAadhaar PDF is password-protected

The official eAadhaar you download from the UIDAI portal is encrypted — it asks for a password every time you open it. This tool cannot open an encrypted PDF, so you need to remove the password first, and you can do that without any online service:

  1. Open the eAadhaar in a trusted local PDF viewer and enter the password provided in the official download instructions.
  2. Use the viewer's Print → “Save as PDF” (or “Microsoft Print to PDF”) to save a fresh, unprotected copy to your device.
  3. Drop that unprotected copy into the tool above.

That unprotected copy is created and used entirely on your device — it is never uploaded anywhere, and you can delete it once you have your redacted version.

Why the output is image-only (and larger)

The thing that makes the redaction trustworthy — discarding the text layer — is also the thing that makes the output a pure image PDF. That has two visible trade-offs: file size may increase, and you can no longer Ctrl+F search its text. For a document you are sharing as proof of identity, that is the right trade: you are paying file size for the guarantee that your masked Aadhaar number cannot be text-extracted by whoever receives it. The disclaimer under the download button states this so the recipient is not surprised by a non-searchable file.

You can verify the privacy claim yourself

Your Aadhaar PDF never leaves your browser tab. There is no server in the loop to receive it — the tool is a static bundle that runs on your own device. Open DevTools → Network and watch while you redact: no request carries your file. First use downloads software and model assets; offline use requires those assets to be loaded and available in your browser cache. And the full pipeline is open source on GitHub under AGPL-3.0, with browser tests checking network requests during detection and export. Cloudflare Web Analytics sends separate page usage statistics, not your document.

Frequently asked questions

Is my Aadhaar PDF uploaded?
No. Your browser parses, masks and exports it locally. First use downloads software assets, and optional analytics sends page usage statistics, but no request carries your document.
Does a password-protected eAadhaar PDF work?
Not directly. Open the PDF in a trusted local viewer using your password, then use Print → Save as PDF if the viewer permits it to create an unprotected copy. Choose that copy in DocRedact. Keep it on your device and delete it when no longer needed.
What does it hide in the PDF?
Detected first 8 Aadhaar digits, probable UIDAI QR codes, faces, PAN numbers and passport MRZ regions are selected by default. The last 4 Aadhaar digits stay visible. Review selections, uncheck unwanted regions and use manual mode to cover anything missed.
Does it remove the original text layer?
Yes. Every exported page is a new image with solid masks already painted onto it. The output has no original text layer or removable mask shapes. This only protects covered regions; review all pages for missed content.
Does it work on multi-page PDFs?
Yes, up to 20 MB and 10 pages, subject to a 40-million-pixel budget per rasterized page and 80 million pixels for the document. Review each page with the preview controls. Split a PDF if it exceeds the memory budget.
What about the Aadhaar QR code?
QR codes can carry personal details separately from the printed number. DocRedact decodes them locally and selects probable UIDAI QR codes, but classification and detection can be wrong. Review every QR and use manual mode if needed.
Why is the output not searchable?
The export discards the original text layer so covered text is not retained underneath a mask. The resulting image-only PDF is not searchable and may be larger than the input.
Why is this free?
The consumer tool is free and open source. A browser-side business integration is planned, not currently available. Join the API waitlist for updates.

Related

Working from a photo of the card instead? Mask Aadhaar online. Need to redact a PAN? Redact PAN card online. Want the architecture? How it works.