How-To Guides
Redacting attachments: clear every file once, not twice
Why attachments and scanned PDFs are where most SAR and FOI redaction errors happen. Step by step: preparing image-only PDFs and email attachments so every redaction is reliable. Checking your work and keeping a complete audit trail across every document
Most of a request's pages are files, not messages. A bundle of 400 emails can carry 900 attachments, the same safeguarding report can arrive twelve times, and a scanned letter has no text for a search to find. Here is how RedactBox handles the files in a project, so you review redactions instead of starting from scratch on each one.
Why attachments overrun the request
The messages are the easy part. The files are where the work doubles. Files are spread across hundreds of threads. One file appears on many messages and needs one treatment, not many. And some files contain no searchable text at all, so a name in a photo of a peg label sits there looking redacted when it is not.
RedactBox treats a file as part of the project, not as a passenger on an email.
Only the files going out are converted
Files in the export are converted to PDF so you redact them like any other item. Two things qualify a file: it sits on an approved message, or you choose Keep file. A file you left out, or set aside as junk, is not converted at all.
This matters for time and for clarity. Nothing is processed that will not be sent.
A file attached to many messages is converted and redacted once. One copy, one set of redactions, one decision.
The formats RedactBox opens
- PDF, kept as it is. A password-protected PDF can be unlocked with its password first.
- Word and text: doc, docx, docm, dot, dotx, odt, rtf, txt, wpd.
- Spreadsheets: xls, xlsx, xlsm, xlsb, ods, csv, tsv.
- Presentations: ppt, pptx, pptm, pps, ppsx, odp.
- Pictures: png, jpg, gif, bmp, tif, tiff, webp, one page per picture.
- Attached emails (eml and msg), laid out like any other message.
A converted spreadsheet opens in a grid rather than as a PDF, so you can redact cells and send back a real spreadsheet. Spreadsheet redaction is in Beta: check the exported workbook before you share it. Anything outside that list shows Can't open this type, and you handle it as covered in the help centre article on attached files RedactBox can't open.
When a file converts
Conversion starts within seconds of approving a message, or of choosing Keep file. Each file's row under its message says Waiting to convert, then Converting, then Ready to redact.
A PDF says Waiting to prepare and Preparing instead. It is not converted. RedactBox checks that it opens and reads its text so Search & Redact can find names in it, and its pages are not changed.
Most files take seconds. A large one can take a few minutes, and you can keep working meanwhile.
Opening a file and reviewing it
Four ways in:
- In Redact, click the message. Its files open under it. Click the file's row and it opens as a tab beside the Message tab.
- On the message's view, click the file's name on the Attached line under the header.
- Open Tools › Attachments, click the file's name, then Open to redact.
- Press [ or ] to move between the message and its files.
Start by checking the redactions that are already on it. Then add what is missing with the usual tools: select text to redact it, or draw a box with Area Redaction.
A tab still converting shows the file's progress and opens the file by itself when it is ready. You do not have to sit and watch it.
Redactions catch up, both ways
This is the part that saves the second pass. Redactions made with Search & Redact, Word Lists or People are applied to converted files automatically:
- A file converted later gets every redaction already made across the project before it enters the export.
- A redaction made later is added to the files already converted.
One exception. Patterns are not run again on converted files. If you used one, run it again to cover them.
Pictures and scans are held back
A photo or a scanned letter has no text, so Search & Redact, Word Lists and People cannot reach it. RedactBox holds it back from the export until someone has looked. Its row reads Held back · no text to search.
Open it and cover anything sensitive with Area Redaction. When it is ready to go, choose Keep file. If it should not go out at all, choose Leave out.
Boxes hide only what is under them. If the same name appears in the file's name or the message's subject, redact it there too. Our guide to what counts as a redaction covers where a name can hide in a bundle.
A decision belongs to the file
On a file's tab, the right of the tab strip says what will happen to it: Linked attachment, Kept, Held back. Hover over it for the detail. Next to it are the choices the file can be given, Leave out and Keep file, plus Done · next, which moves to the next file on the message, then the next message.
A decision here covers the file wherever it is attached. For a file on several messages, the hover text says so.
If you change your mind later, the project follows:
- Trash a message and its converted files leave the export, unless another approved message carries them or you choose Keep file. A shared file moves to the next approved message that carries it, with its redactions.
- Leave a file out and it leaves the export everywhere. Its rows say Updating… for a moment while that happens.
The keys that keep a review moving
Enter marks what you are looking at as reviewed and moves on. On a message with files it goes to the first file still to review, then each file in turn, then the next message. It also moves past a file that is still converting or could not be converted, so the review never stops dead. Each reviewed file gets the green tick in the Reviewed column.
Inside a spreadsheet's grid, Enter redacts the selected cells instead.
Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac) takes back your last redaction on the open file: a box you drew over text or an area, a box saved with a reason, or Redact here. Press it again to go further back. It never removes a colleague's redaction, and opening another tab or item starts the list afresh. The spreadsheet grid has its own Undo.
Seeing how much is on a file
In Redact, each file's row carries its own count in the Redactions column: the same red chip a message has. A file with nothing redacted says None. Scan that column before you export, and the files that were never touched stand out.
Worked example: a pupil's EHCP review
The message EHCP annual review - full draft for comment is approved. Its file, EHCP annual review - Maisie Haverford.docx, reads Waiting to convert, then Ready to redact.
The reviewer opens its tab. Other pupils' names are already redacted, from People. She redacts a teacher's mobile number by hand, draws one box too wide, presses Ctrl+Z to take it back, then redraws it.
A photo on another message reads Held back · no text to search. She covers the name on a peg label with Area Redaction and chooses Keep file.
She presses Enter to mark each file reviewed and move on.
Checks before the export goes out
- Every file's row read, not just every message's.
- No file still sitting at Held back · no text to search.
- Any pattern you used re-run after the last conversion.
- The Redactions column checked for files saying None.
- Spreadsheet workbooks opened and checked, while the grid is in Beta.
Try it on your next request: attach the files, work through them with Enter, and watch the redactions arrive already in place. For the full reference, see redacting attachments in the help centre.