Redacted symbols to copy and paste

Every character used to black something out, in one place: the redacted box (█), black squares (■ ⬛), ready-made bars, and the [REDACTED] label. Click one to copy it, then paste it anywhere text goes.

Which one should you use?

For the classified-document look, use the full block (█) and repeat it. Word-length bars like █████ ███ ██████ read as redaction because they mirror the shape of the sentence underneath. If you want to hide how long the words were, use bars of equal length instead.

For a single covered item, such as one name in a list, a black square (■) or a short bar (███) is enough. In plain-text places where the character might not render, [REDACTED] is the safer choice.

Redacting a whole sentence

Copying single characters gets tedious for anything longer than a few words. The redacted text generator converts whole sentences at once, keeps or hides word lengths, and can black out only the words you name. It runs in your browser, so nothing you type is uploaded.

These are characters, not redaction

Pasting a black square next to text does not remove that text. It sits beside it. The same is true in a document: a black rectangle drawn on top of a PDF or an image can leave the original underneath, which is how some redacted images get unredacted.

When the point is that nobody can recover what was there, replace the characters (which the generator does) or flatten the pixels (which the image editor does). Both happen locally, with no upload.

Where people paste these

Discord and Slack messages, X posts, spoiler warnings, meme captions, roleplay and worldbuilding documents, changelogs hiding an unreleased name, and screenshots of chats where one participant should stay anonymous. Because they are normal characters, they survive copy and paste between apps.

Black bars as images

If you need a bar as a file rather than a character, for slides or a document, the black bar PNG downloads cover the common sizes, plus censor bars and stamps.

FAQ

What is the redacted box character?

It is the Unicode full block, █ (U+2588). It fills its whole character cell, so a row of them reads as one solid black bar. The lighter variants are the dark, medium and light shades (▓ ▒ ░).

What is the difference between a redacted square and a black square?

They are the same idea at different sizes. ■ (U+25A0) is the black square, ⬛ (U+2B1B) is the black large square and renders as an emoji on most devices, and ▪ (U+25AA) is the small one. For covering text, a run of full blocks (███) usually looks closer to real redaction.

What does [REDACTED] in brackets mean?

It is the written convention for information that has been deliberately removed, borrowed from declassified documents. Writers use it instead of black bars because it survives plain text, and it has become a common way to censor a name or detail for comic effect.

Will these symbols show up on every device?

The block and square characters are ordinary Unicode and render almost everywhere without a special font. The emoji squares (⬛ 🔳 🔲) depend on the device's emoji set, so they can look slightly different between phones and desktops.

Do these symbols hide text in an image?

No. They are text characters, so they only work where text works. To cover something in a screenshot or photo, use the Redacted image editor, which draws a solid box over the pixels and strips the file's metadata in your browser.