Highlight to Redact

Quickly redact sensitive text by highlighting it directly in your emails.

Written By Harry Elliott

Last updated About 3 hours ago

This article explains how to select text and automatically redact matching text across your current email or all emails in your project.

Entering Redact Mode

  1. Open your project

  2. Click on an email to view it

  3. Click Redact in the toolbar to enable redaction mode

Redacting Selected Text

  1. Click and drag to highlight the text you want to redact

  2. The selected text will be redacted immediately

Tip: A red highlight appears over redacted text. You can click on any redaction to view details or delete it.

Auto-Redact Similar Text

Auto-redact finds and redacts matching text automatically, saving you from manually selecting each instance.

  1. In the toolbar, click the Auto-redact dropdown

  2. Select your preferred scope:

    • Off - Only redact your exact selection

    • This Email - Redact all matching text in the current email

    • All Emails - Redact matching text across your entire project

When set to All Emails, a confirmation dialog appears showing:

  • The text that will be redacted

  • The matching settings being used

  • Number of emails containing matches

  • Total occurrences found

Click Redact All to apply.

Matching Settings

The toolbar displays your current matching settings when Auto-redact is enabled. These settings control how RedactBox finds matching text.

Case Matching

  • Exact case (default) - Only matches identical capitalisation. "John" matches "John" but not "john"

  • Any case - Matches regardless of capitalisation. "John" matches "John", "john", and "JOHN"

Word Matching

  • Whole word (default) - Only matches complete words. "mark" matches "mark" but not "marketing"

  • Contains - Matches text anywhere. "mark" matches "mark", "marketing", and "bookmark"

Changing Matching Settings

  1. Click the Settings icon in the header

  2. Find the Highlight Redaction section

  3. Toggle Case Sensitive on or off

  4. Toggle Match Whole Words on or off

Changes apply immediately to future selections.

Tip: The current settings are shown as small badges in the toolbar when Auto-redact is enabled, so you always know how matches will be found.

When to Use Each Setting

For names and specific terms: Use Exact case + Whole word to prevent partial matches.

For email addresses or domains: Use Any case + Contains to catch "@company.com" variations.

For text that appears in different cases: Use Any case + Whole word to catch "John", "john", and "JOHN" without matching "Johnson".