Remove password from PDF
Tired of typing the same password every time a PDF opens? Enter it once here and download a copy with the password removed. It all happens in your browser, so the PDF and the password never leave your device.
How to remove a password from a PDF
Remove a password from a PDF in your browser
Many banks, payroll services and tax offices send PDFs that open only after you type a password. It protects the file while it travels by email, but once it is on your own computer the password mostly gets in the way: you type it every time, a phone may not remember it, and a printer or another app may refuse the file.
Removing the password takes a few seconds here. Drop the PDF, type the password you already use to open it and press Unlock PDF. You get a new file named after the original with -unlocked added, for example payslip-march.pdf becomes payslip-march-unlocked.pdf. It opens without a password in any PDF reader. One PDF of up to 60 MB can be handled at a time.
If a new statement arrives every month, unlock each one as it comes in. Each file takes only a few seconds, because the work happens on your own device and nothing has to travel to a server and back. There is no account to create and no watermark is added to the copy.
Remove the password without uploading the PDF
A PDF with a password usually holds something personal, so sending it to a website along with its password would defeat the point. Here, the work happens in your browser instead. The file is read from your device, decrypted with the password you type and saved back to your device. Nothing is sent to a server.
The password is not kept. It stays in the page only until the copy is ready, and it is not stored in the browser or written to any log. When you press Start over or close the page, it is gone.
Open password and permissions password
A PDF can have two kinds of password. An open password, also called a user password, is asked for before the file shows anything. To remove it you have to type it, because the content is encrypted with it. If you type the wrong one, you see "That password didn't work. Check it and try again." and can try again.
A permissions password, also called an owner password, lets the file open freely but blocks printing, copying text or editing. When a PDF like that is dropped, the tool says it opens without a password and only has limits, and Unlock PDF removes them without asking for the password. Files locked with AES-256, AES-128 or the older RC4 encryption all work. Files locked with a digital certificate instead of a password do not. If you are not sure which kind of password your file has, just drop it: the tool checks and shows either the password box or the note about limits.
What to do with the unlocked PDF
The copy is the same document without the lock: text, images, links and form fields are unchanged. Because it opens freely, you can now merge PDF files such as monthly statements into one, split PDF pages out of it or compress PDF size to send it by email. If the PDF was digitally signed, the signature will show the document as changed, because the file was saved again.
Anyone who gets the unlocked copy can read it, so think about where you store it. To put a new password on a PDF later, protect PDF adds one with AES-256 encryption, also in your browser.