Search & Redact: Bulk Email Redaction Made Simple

Introducing Search & Redact

Processing large email archives for Subject Access Requests or Freedom of Information responses can be overwhelming. Manually reviewing thousands of emails to find and redact sensitive information like names, phone numbers, or specific phrases is time-consuming and error-prone.

RedactBox's Search & Redact feature transforms this process, allowing you to search your entire email archive, preview all matches, and bulk redact with a single click.

How Search & Redact Works

The Search & Redact workflow is straightforward:

1. Search Your Archive

Enter any search term—a name, email address, phone number, or phrase—and instantly search across all emails in your project. The search is fast, even across thousands of emails, and supports options like case-sensitive and whole-word matching for precision.

2. Preview All Matches

Before redacting anything, review every match across your entire archive. See exactly where each term appears, in which emails, and in what context. This prevents accidental over-redaction and ensures you're only removing what's necessary.

3. Bulk Redact with One Click

Once you've reviewed the matches, redact all occurrences with a single click. No need to go through each email individually—Search & Redact handles the entire archive at once.

When to Use Search & Redact

Search & Redact is particularly valuable for:

• Third-party names: Quickly find and redact all mentions of individuals who aren't the data subject in a SAR
• Phone numbers and emails: Remove contact information that shouldn't be disclosed
• Sensitive phrases: Redact specific project names, code words, or confidential terms
• Consistent redaction: Ensure the same term is redacted identically across all documents

Search Options for Precision

Search & Redact offers flexible options to match exactly what you need:

• Case-sensitive matching: Distinguish between "Smith" and "SMITH" when needed
• Whole-word matching: Search for "John" without matching "Johnson"
• Partial matching: Find all variations of a term across your archive

Time Savings

For a typical SAR with 500 emails, manually searching for and redacting a single name might take 30-60 minutes. With Search & Redact, the same task takes under a minute. When you need to redact multiple terms—which is almost always the case—the time savings multiply dramatically.

Getting Started

Search & Redact is available to all RedactBox users. Simply upload your email archive (MBOX or PST), navigate to the Search & Redact panel, and start searching. Your archive is processed securely, and all redactions are permanent and irreversible in the exported PDFs.

Combining with Other Features

Search & Redact works alongside RedactBox's other redaction tools:

• Highlight to Redact: Manually select and redact specific text by highlighting
• Triage Mode: Sort and categorise emails before deciding what to redact
• Document Mode: Review finalised PDFs before export

Conclusion

Search & Redact fundamentally changes how you approach bulk email redaction. Instead of tedious manual review, you get instant search results and one-click redaction across your entire archive. Whether you're processing SARs, FOI requests, or any compliance scenario requiring email disclosure, Search & Redact helps you work faster and more accurately.