What does redacted mean?

Redacted means that information has been removed or blacked out of a document before the document was shared. The rest of the page stays readable. Only the sensitive parts are covered, usually with a solid black bar, so you can see that something was there without being able to read it.

The word comes from the Latin redigere, “to bring back” or “to put in order”, and it carries two related senses in English today.

The two meanings of redact

1. To obscure information before release. This is the common modern sense: a lawyer redacts a client’s address from a court exhibit, an agency redacts names from a released file, you redact an order number out of a screenshot. The information is deliberately hidden from the version other people see.
2. To edit or prepare text for publication. The older editorial sense, still used in academic and publishing contexts. A redactor in this sense is an editor, not a censor.

If someone says a document is “heavily redacted”, they mean the first one.

Where you see redacted documents

• Court filings and legal exhibits, where names, addresses, account numbers, and medical details are covered before the document goes on the public record.
• Freedom of information responses, where an agency releases a file but blacks out sections it is not required to disclose.
• Contracts and financial records shared with a third party who needs to see the terms but not the parties’ private details.
• Screenshots posted online, where someone covers a username, a phone number, or a balance before sharing.
• [REDACTED] as a figure of speech, used online and in memes as a joke about something being too secret, too embarrassing, or too rude to say out loud.

Redacted, censored, classified, deleted

These get used interchangeably and mean different things.

• Redacted: specific information is hidden, the document itself is still released.
• Censored: content is suppressed, often by an authority, on grounds of being objectionable rather than private.
• Classified: the document is restricted in full and is not released at all. A classified document can be redacted so that a version of it can be released.
• Deleted or expunged: the information is destroyed rather than covered, and no version of it remains.

Does redacted mean the information is gone?

Not necessarily, and this is where redaction most often goes wrong. A black rectangle drawn on top of a PDF or a slide is a layer, and anyone who opens that file can sometimes move or delete it to reveal the text underneath. The same is true of light blur and of pixelation applied to short, predictable text.

Real redaction removes the underlying data rather than covering it up. That is why properly redacted files are usually flattened or exported as images, and why several high-profile leaks have come from documents that only looked redacted. There is more on how that happens in can redacted images be unredacted.

How to redact something yourself

If you want to black out part of an image or a screenshot, Redacted does it in your browser: open the file, drag a box over what you want hidden, and download the result. The cover is drawn into the image itself rather than layered on top, and the image is never uploaded anywhere. For text you want to paste into a message, the redacted text generator turns any words into █████ bars.

FAQ

What does [REDACTED] mean in a text or a meme?

It is a joke borrowed from declassified documents. Writing [REDACTED] in place of a word implies the word is secret, incriminating, or too rude to print, in the way a real redacted file hides a name.

Is redacted the same as censored?

No. Redacting hides specific private details so the rest of a document can be shared. Censoring suppresses content because someone objects to it. A redacted document is usually being released, not withheld.

What does redacted mean on a bank statement or a background check?

It means certain fields were covered before the copy was given to you or to a third party. Account numbers, addresses, and dates of birth are the usual ones, so the document proves what it needs to prove without exposing everything else.

Can redacted text be recovered?

Sometimes. If the cover is a separate layer in an editable file it can often be removed, and weak blur or pixelation over short text can sometimes be reconstructed. A solid cover flattened into an exported image cannot be undone.

What is the black bar called?

The character used to imitate it in text is the full block, █, at Unicode position U+2588. In print and on screen the bar itself is usually just called a redaction bar or a censor bar.