DocMint guide

How to remove personal data from a PDF before you send it

By Tim Grootes, Bumblly · Last updated November 14, 2026

A landlord wants a payslip. A new job wants a copy of your ID. A company asks for a bank statement. Often they need one fact, and you send a whole page of personal details. Here is how to send less, and how to make sure what you remove is really gone.

We make DocMint, an app that redacts PDFs. The checklist works whatever app you use.

Checklist

Where personal data hides in a PDF

• On the page: names, addresses, dates of birth, account and ID numbers, signatures, photos and barcodes.
• Under black boxes: a box drawn on top often leaves the text in the file. A 2019 court filing is the best-known example (The Judges' Journal).
• In hidden data: Adobe notes that redaction removes visible text and graphics, while metadata and embedded content have to be removed separately (Adobe Help).
• In the text layer of a scan: a searchable scan carries a hidden layer of recognized text under the picture.
• In the file name: "Statement J Smith 4471.pdf" already says a lot.

Common examples

What people often leave in

• Bank statement: other transactions, the balance and the full account number, when only your name and address were needed.
• Payslip: tax and social security numbers, when only the salary was needed.
• ID copy: the document number and the photo, when the receiver only had to see your name. Ask what they really need; rules for ID copies differ by country.
• Contract: the other party's details and your signature, when a single clause is all someone asked for.

Step by step

Remove it with DocMint

1. Ask what is needed. Find out which facts the receiver needs: a name and an address, a salary, the last four digits of an account. Everything else can go.
2. Mark it in a PDF. Import the PDF, open it and tap Redact. Drag a box over each detail that must go, on every page.
3. Or mark it on a scan. For a scanned paper document, open the page, tap Annotate and choose Redact.
4. Export a new file. For a PDF, tap Export redacted PDF. For a scan, use Export PDF. Both make a new file; your original stays as it was.
5. Check it. Open the new file and search for a number you covered, or copy all its text into a note. It should not be there.
6. Give it a plain name. Before sending, give the file a name that does not hold personal details itself.

What happens

What the new file holds

• In a redacted PDF, the text and pictures under each box are removed from the file, not just covered.
• The redacted PDF is built from the pages only: metadata such as the author and title, and attached files, do not come along.
• On a scan, the box is burned into the picture of the page, and that page's recognized text is left out of the export.
• DocMint does not search for personal data by itself. You mark each area, so look through every page.

Marking areas is free. Exporting a redacted PDF is part of DocMint Pro, which is a one-time Lifetime purchase or a monthly subscription. The store shows the price before you buy.

There is no account. Your documents stay on your phone, and DocMint does not upload them, their text or their file names. See the DocMint privacy policy.

For the details of redacting on your phone, see redacting on iPhone or redacting on Android.