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Overview
Redaction in Conseal isn't one-way. Every redacted file comes with a bundle that can bring the original values back, and if the bundle was saved as locked, a six-word passphrase controls who can do it. This guide walks through restoring a locked bundle from start to finish.
You'll end with your document back in its original form, every redacted value returned to its place. You'll need the Conseal .zip bundle saved at redaction time and, for locked bundles, its six-word passphrase.
Open “Restore a document”
At the bottom of the home screen, find the Restore a document row and click Open. As the tooltip explains, this opens a Conseal bundle saved at redaction time and puts the original values back. It can also re-stitch a redacted copy that an AI tool has edited, which has its own guide The Safe AI Workflow.
Select your bundle
Click Select .zip bundle and pick the bundle from wherever you saved it. Locked bundles have "locked" in the file name by default.
Enter the passphrase
If the bundle is locked, you'll see a SECURE badge next to the file name and a passphrase field. Type the six words, hyphens and all, exactly as they were generated, for example tennis-sugar-portal-able-turf-angel. Then click Unlock.
This is the moment the locked save exists for: without these six words, the bundle stays sealed. If you received the file from someone else, they'll need to share the passphrase with you separately. And a reminder from the other side of this flow: Conseal never sees or stores passphrases, so there is no reset. If the words are gone, the originals are unrecoverable.
Passphrase entry — locked bundle
Restoring an open bundle? Same flow, minus this step. Open bundles have no passphrase, so Conseal takes you straight to the values. That convenience is exactly why open bundles should never leave your own workflow: anyone who has the file can do what you're doing right now.
Review the values to restore
Once unlocked, Conseal shows everything the bundle contains: each label from the redacted document, like PERSON_1 or ACCOUNT_1, next to the original value it maps back to. All values are selected by default (you'll see a count like 38/38 selected to restore), and each has its own checkbox.
This is more useful than it first looks. You don't have to restore everything. Want the names back but not the account numbers? Untick what should stay hidden, and it stays hidden.
One note from the interface worth repeating: values are placed back at their original positions, and longer edited values may shift slightly in PDFs.
Values to restore
Restore and save
Click Restore all. Choose a name and location in the save dialog, click Save, and Conseal writes the restored file. A green Restoration complete banner confirms the count and shows exactly where the file was saved.
That's the whole loop: redact, share safely, restore when needed. Like everything in Conseal, restoration happens entirely on your machine. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Where this gets powerful
Restoring your own file is the simple case. The same mechanism also re-stitches documents an AI tool has edited: redact, let the AI work on the safe copy, then bring the real values back into the result. That workflow gets its own guide: The Safe AI Workflow.