How to remove a password from a PDF
- Add your PDF. Drop it onto the box above, or tap to choose a file. The tool checks whether it needs a password, only has restrictions, or isn't protected at all.
- Enter the password. If the PDF needs one, type it in PDF password. Use the eye button to check what you typed.
- Press Unlock PDF, or Remove restrictions for a PDF that only has restrictions.
- Download the result with Download PDF. The copy has -unlocked added to its name.
Features
- Removes the open password from PDFs you have the password for.
- Removes print, copy and edit restrictions from PDFs that open without a password.
- Checks the file first and tells you which kind of protection it has, or that it has none.
- Clear messages for a wrong password or a damaged file.
- Works with all standard PDF encryption, from older 40-bit and 128-bit files to AES-256.
- Accepts the permissions password too, if that's the one you were given.
- File size before and after shown next to the download.
- Your original stays unchanged.
Why use Fileora to unlock a PDF
Typing a document's password into someone else's website is a strange way to protect it. Many unlock tools upload both the PDF and its password to their servers. Fileora runs qpdf, a widely used open-source PDF toolkit, inside your browser instead, so the file and the password never leave your device. There's no account, no watermark and no page limit, and it works on phones as well as computers.
Removing a password is handy when a document has to be opened again and again: a bank statement you file every month, a payslip you need to attach to an application, or a report you want to merge with other files or split into parts, which those tools can't do while the PDF is encrypted.
Open passwords and restrictions
PDFs can carry two kinds of protection. An open password (also called a user password) encrypts the whole file; nothing can be read without it. Restrictions are set with a separate permissions password (also called an owner password). The file opens normally, but readers are asked not to allow printing, copying or editing.
When you add a PDF, Fileora works out which one you have. For an open password, you'll be asked for it. For restrictions only, a single button removes them. If the file has both, the open password is what you need to enter, and unlocking removes the restrictions as well.
What this tool won't do
It won't break into a PDF you can't open. There is no password guessing or cracking, and no way to recover a lost password. That's deliberate: a properly encrypted PDF protects its owner, and the only honest route in is the password. If you're locked out of your own document, the original unencrypted file or the sender is the place to go.
Keep unlocked copies safe
Once the password is gone, anyone who gets the file can read it. Store the unlocked copy somewhere private, and if you need to share it again, protect it with a new password using lock PDF.