What is included in Foxit Smart Redact Plugin?

AI PII detection – Finds names, IDs, emails and account numbers.
Hidden data removal – Covers visible text, hidden content and metadata.
Redaction profiles – Four default profiles plus your own custom rules.
Manual confirmation – You approve every detected item before applying.
Core Capacity – 50 documents included; add-on plans reach 2,400.
Important – Editor+ required; no e-signatures or offline processing.

What are the main benefits of Foxit Smart Redact Plugin?

Foxit Smart Redact Plugin is an AI-based redaction add-on that installs into Foxit PDF Editor and scans a PDF for personal and confidential data instead of making you read every page. It lists what it finds, you confirm the items, and the plugin removes them permanently from the file.

Faster document review – One scan lists sensitive items per file.
Fewer missed items – Detects hidden layers and metadata, not only text.
Repeatable policies – Saved profiles keep redaction consistent across a team.
Full user control – Nothing is removed without your explicit confirmation.
Audit-friendly security – TAA compliant, SOC 2 certified, AES-256 encrypted.
No tool switching – Works from the Protect tab in Editor.

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What does the Foxit Smart Redact Plugin actually do?

It scans an open PDF and produces a list of detected sensitive information, which you review and then redact in one action. Foxit PDF Editor extracts the text locally, including OCR-generated text from scanned pages, and sends it to the Smart Redact service, where Azure AI Language and Foxit's own model ensemble compare results before returning the detections. Recognised data includes personal names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, credit card and driver's licence numbers, plus medical records and diagnostic codes. In practice this replaces the page-by-page reading step in a FOIA response or a contract disclosure, which is where most manual redaction errors happen.

Does the plugin work with any version of Foxit PDF Editor?

No. Smart Redact is only available with Foxit PDF Editor+; on the standard edition or a perpetual licence the Smart Redact button does not appear at all. This is the single most common reason buyers end up unable to use the plugin, so check which Foxit edition is installed before purchasing. The plugin itself installs as an MSI on Windows or a PKG on macOS and requires a Foxit Account, because detection runs as a cloud service rather than locally.

How is the Smart Redact Plugin different from Smart Redact Server?

The plugin handles documents you have open in PDF Editor, while Smart Redact Server scans entire repositories and connects to Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, SharePoint, Exchange and AWS S3. The server product also supports over 47 file types, scheduled recurring scans and an off-grid mode that runs without cloud access; the plugin does none of these. Both share the same detection engine, so accuracy is not the differentiator — scale and automation are. If your work means a few dozen contracts a month, the plugin is the right tier; if it means scanning ten thousand files in a storage bucket, it is not.

What happens to a document while it is being redacted?

Text is extracted locally by PDF Editor and sent to the Smart Redact service, which follows a zero-retention policy: original and intermediate files, along with the results, are deleted once the task finishes. Transmission between PDF Editor and the Foxit cloud is encrypted with AES-256, and the service is hosted on Azure, TAA compliant and SOC 2 certified. Redaction removes the underlying content rather than drawing a black box over it, so text cannot be recovered by copy-paste or by extracting the page. For compliance teams this matters more than the visual result, because most redaction failures published in the press were overlays, not real removals.

What should users check before choosing this plugin?

Check three things: the Foxit edition in use, the document quota, and internet availability. Editor+ includes an allowance of 50 documents, after which additional capacity is bought separately in tiers of 200, 1,000 or 2,400 documents; the plugin will not process files beyond the remaining quota. Because detection runs as a cloud service, an air-gapped workstation cannot use it — the off-grid option exists only in Smart Redact Server. Scanned documents also need a text layer first, so run OCR in PDF Editor before scanning a photographed or faxed file, otherwise the AI has no text to analyse.

Frequently asked questions about Foxit Smart Redact Plugin

Does Smart Redact consume Foxit AI Assistant credits?

No. Smart Redact runs on a separate redaction engine and uses Document Credits, which are tracked independently from the AI credits used by Foxit AI Assistant. Summarising or translating a file therefore does not reduce your redaction allowance.

Is the plugin available on macOS as well as Windows?

Yes. Foxit ships the plugin as an MSI installer for Windows and a PKG installer for macOS, and both attach to the Protect tab of Foxit PDF Editor. On either platform a Foxit Account sign-in is required before the Smart Redact panel will open.

Can I redact terms that are specific to my own documents?

Yes. Alongside the four default profiles installed with the plugin, you can define custom keywords and phrases and save them as reusable profiles. This is how teams handle internal project code names, case numbers or client references that no generic PII model would recognise.

Can I see what will be removed before it is applied?

Yes. Detected items are listed in the Smart Redact panel for review, and you can select them individually or check all before clicking Apply. Redaction is only written into the file after that confirmation step, which is why the plugin is workable for legal review where a wrongly removed clause is as damaging as a missed one.