Unlock PDF
Unlock a PDF that asks for a password every time you open it. Type the password you know and save a copy that opens without one, ready to merge, edit or share. It all runs in your browser, so neither the file nor the password is ever uploaded.
How to unlock a PDF
Unlock a PDF with the password you know
Bank statements, payslips, tax documents and insurance letters often arrive as PDFs that ask for a password, usually a date of birth or part of an account number. That is fine once, but tiresome when you open the file every week, and a locked PDF cannot be merged with other files, compressed or edited by most tools. Unlocking saves a copy that opens without the password.
Drop the PDF and type the password you use to open it. Press Show to see the characters instead of dots, which helps with long passwords. Press Unlock PDF and the new file is ready in a moment, named after the original with -unlocked added, so statement.pdf becomes statement-unlocked.pdf. One PDF of up to 60 MB can be unlocked at a time, and the original file is not changed.
Your password and file stay in your browser
The files people unlock are some of the most private they have, so this tool never uploads them. The PDF is read from your device, decrypted in your browser with the password you type, and saved back to your device. The password is used for that one job and then forgotten: it is not stored in the browser, written to a log or sent to a server.
That also means there is nobody on our side who could look up a password for you. If the password does not work, you see "That password didn't work. Check it and try again." Passwords are case-sensitive, and a space copied from an email at the start or end counts too.
What unlocking can and cannot do
This tool removes a password you know; it does not break one you do not. A PDF that asks for a password to open is encrypted, and without the password its content cannot be read. There is no trick around that, here or anywhere honest. If you lost the password to a file someone sent you, ask them for it or for a new copy.
Some PDFs open without a password but stop you from printing, copying text or editing. Those limits come from a second, owner password. When you drop such a file, the tool says it opens without a password and only has limits, and Unlock PDF removes them without asking for anything. PDFs locked with the standard password method open here whether they use AES-256, AES-128 or the older RC4 encryption. PDFs locked with a digital certificate instead of a password are not supported.
After the PDF is unlocked
The unlocked copy keeps its text, images, links and form fields exactly as they were; only the encryption is gone. It opens in any PDF reader and works with every other tool on this site, so you can merge PDF files into one, compress PDF size for email or edit PDF text straight away. If the file had a digital signature, the signature will show the document as changed, because the file was saved again.
Keep the unlocked copy somewhere safe, since anyone who gets it can read it. To lock a PDF again with a password of your own, protect PDF adds AES-256 encryption in your browser in the same way.