Unlock a PDF
Take the printing, copying and editing restrictions off a PDF, or remove an open password you already know. The file is decrypted in your browser and the unlocked copy keeps everything else.
Choose a PDF to see what kind of protection it has.
Document
A PDF has two passwords, and they do different things
The user password, sometimes called the open password, is the one a reader asks for before it shows you anything. Without it the content really is unreadable: the text and images are encrypted with a key derived from that password.
The owner password, also called the permissions password, is a different animal. It sets flags that say “do not allow printing”, “do not allow copying” or “do not allow editing”. When a file has an owner password but an empty user password — by far the more common case — it opens with a double-click, and the restrictions are enforced only by the politeness of whichever program you open it in. This is what banks, payroll providers, tax portals and e-signature services send out.
Drop a file in and the panel tells you which situation you are in: the cipher used, whether it opens without a password, and exactly which actions are restricted.
Removing restrictions from a file that already opens
If the file opens without asking you anything, nothing more is needed. The content is encrypted, but with a key that anyone holding the file can compute, which is precisely how your reader opens it silently. This page does the same computation, decrypts every object, and writes a new copy with no encryption dictionary at all. The result prints, copies and edits normally everywhere.
Of 1,463 everyday PDFs this was tested against, 170 carried encryption, and every one of them was in this category. Between them they used every cipher PDF has had: 47 with 40-bit RC4 from the late nineties, 65 with 128-bit RC4, 47 with 128-bit AES and 11 with 256-bit AES. 156 of them blocked editing, 92 blocked copying text, and 30 blocked printing. All 170 came out unencrypted with identical text, bookmarks and rendering.
Removing a password you know
If the file asks for a password to open and you have that password — it was in the email the statement came with, or you set it yourself — type it into the box. It is checked inside this page by the same algorithm a PDF reader uses, and if it is right the file is decrypted and saved without it, so you do not have to type it again every time you open the document. Owner passwords work in the same box.
What this page will not do is guess. There is no dictionary attack, no brute force and no “recovery”: a wrong password is simply reported as wrong. Modern PDF encryption with a decent password cannot be broken by any honest tool, and anything that claims otherwise is either lying or running the file through a server you know nothing about.
Files protected with a certificate rather than a password, or by a rights-management system that phones home to a licence server, cannot be opened here at all, and the panel says so.
Everything else stays as it was
Many unlocking tools work by printing the document to a new PDF, which flattens forms, drops bookmarks and links, and sometimes rasterises the text so it can no longer be searched. This does not print anything. It copies the document's whole object graph — pages, fonts, images, bookmarks, form fields and their values, links, attachments, metadata — into a new file exactly as it was, minus the encryption. Page content is not re-compressed, and across the 170 files above the unlocked copies came out at a median of 98.6% of the original size.
One thing cannot survive: a digital signature. A signature certifies an exact sequence of bytes, and removing encryption changes every encrypted byte in the file, so any signature on it will show as invalid afterwards. If the signature matters, keep the original alongside the unlocked copy.
Whose document is it?
This is meant for your own documents: your statements, your payslips, a report you wrote and locked a year ago, a form you were sent and need to print. Removing a restriction from something you are entitled to use is ordinary. Using it to get around protection on a document someone else controls, in breach of an agreement or of copyright law, is not something this tool can make legitimate, and it is not what it is for.
Common questions
Can this remove a password I don't know?
No. If a PDF asks for a password before it opens, you need that password — there is no cracking, guessing or brute force here. What does not need a password is a file that already opens but blocks printing, copying or editing: those restrictions are removed without anything from you.
Is my password sent anywhere?
No. The password is checked by JavaScript running in this page, against the values stored in the file, exactly as a desktop reader does. Nothing is uploaded: not the file, not the password. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it works the same.
Why does my bank statement say it is secured if it opens without a password?
Because it carries an owner password that switches off some permissions, usually editing and sometimes copying or printing, while the open password is left empty. The panel above lists exactly which actions are blocked in your file. The unlocked copy has none of those restrictions.
Will the unlocked PDF look any different?
No. Nothing is printed or re-rendered: every page, font and image is copied across as it was, along with bookmarks, links, form fields and metadata. Only the encryption is gone. The one casualty is a digital signature, which cannot stay valid once the file's bytes change.
Which kinds of PDF encryption are supported?
All the password-based ones in the PDF standard: 40-bit and 128-bit RC4, 128-bit AES and 256-bit AES, covering security handler revisions 2 to 6. Certificate (public-key) encryption and third-party rights management plug-ins are not password-based and cannot be opened here.
Is removing a PDF password legal?
Removing the password from your own document, or one you are entitled to use, is routine. Circumventing protection on material someone else controls can breach a contract or copyright law depending on where you are. This tool only works with a password you already have, or on a file that already opens for you, but whether a particular use is allowed is yours to judge.
Can I add a password back afterwards?
Not on this page. Most PDF readers and office suites can save a copy with a new password, and doing it there means the password never has to be typed into a website at all.
Does the file get bigger?
Usually not. Page content is copied without re-compression and a few structural objects are unpacked, so the unlocked copy is typically within a percent or two of the original. On 170 real protected files the median was 98.6% of the original size and the largest increase was 15%.