Remove the password from a PDF

How to Remove Password

1. Add your PDF. Drag the protected file onto the drop zone. The tool detects that it is encrypted and asks for the password.
2. Enter the password. Type the password you normally use to open the file. It is used locally to decrypt the document and is never sent anywhere.
3. Remove the protection. The document is decrypted and rebuilt without encryption.
4. Download. Save the unlocked PDF. It opens from now on without prompting.

What this tool does and does not do

This removes password protection from a PDF you can already open — meaning you know the password and are choosing not to keep entering it. That is the overwhelmingly common case: bank statements, payslips and utility bills that arrive encrypted with your date of birth or customer number, which then have to be unlocked every single time you open them.

It does not crack, guess or bypass a password you do not have. There is no recovery mode and no brute-force option. If you have lost the password to your own file, this tool cannot help you, and neither can any honest one.

Please only remove protection from documents you have the right to use. Stripping encryption from someone else's file is not something this tool is designed for.

Two kinds of PDF password

PDFs support two different passwords, and knowing which one you are facing explains a lot of confusing behaviour:

• A user password (open password) is required to view the document at all. If you are prompted before you can see anything, this is the one. That is what this tool removes.
• An owner password (permissions password) lets anyone open the file but claims to restrict printing, copying or editing. If the document opens fine but printing is greyed out, this is what you have — and the Unlock PDF tool is the right one for it.

Why a password tool must run locally

Consider what uploading to a server-based version of this tool involves: you transmit an encrypted document and, separately, the password that decrypts it. Both arrive at the same place at the same time. Whatever the retention policy says, at that moment a stranger's machine holds a fully readable copy of a document you cared enough about to encrypt.

People reuse passwords. The password protecting a bank statement is quite often one they use elsewhere. Sending it to a third-party service is a genuinely bad idea, even briefly.

This tool never faces that problem. Your browser does the decryption; the password stays in a JavaScript variable on your own machine and is discarded when you close the tab. You can verify it with the Network tab in developer tools — nothing is sent.

Frequently asked questions