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Unlock a PDF

A file that refuses to print, or asks for a password you have. Two different locks, and only one of them opens without knowing anything — the page says plainly which is which.

Two different locks go by one name. A file that opens and only forbids printing or copying can be freed here in a second: the ban lives on the honour of the program that reads it, and the text is lying open anyway. A file that asks for a password before it opens is encrypted — without that password nothing can be done with it, here or anywhere else. We do not guess passwords.

or drop it here · A PDF up to 100 MB

    The file and the password stay in this browser: neither is uploaded anywhere.

    Also on PDFs: Password Protect a PDF · PDF Editor · Merge PDF · Compress PDF

    How to use

    1. Choose a PDF — it is read in your browser, not uploaded anywhere.
    2. The page tells you what kind of lock it found: restrictions, a password, or nothing at all.
    3. Enter the password if one is needed, press the button and download the free file.

    Good to know

    Two locks under one word

    A PDF can hold two different passwords. The owner password does not close the file: it only marks that printing, copying or editing are not allowed, and that mark holds solely in programs that choose to respect it — the text underneath is lying open the whole time. The user password is real encryption: without it the file is a heap of noise. Both are called "protection", and that is why half the people looking for a way to unlock a PDF want something possible and the other half want something that cannot be done.

    What is impossible, and we say so before you upload

    A password you do not know cannot be removed. Not "is hard to remove" — cannot. The contents are encrypted with a key derived from that password; there is nothing to strip off. Any site promising otherwise is either running a guessing attack on your document or lying. We do neither, and the page says so before the file is chosen — rather than after.

    What the file goes through

    There are two ways to take the encryption off, and the first one is better: it drops the encryption dictionary and keeps everything else, fillable form fields included. It does not work on every file — some documents come back still locked, silently, which is the worst possible outcome. So the result is always opened again without a password as a check, and only a file that truly opens is handed over. When the first way fails, the pages move into a fresh document: that always works and loses the form fields. The page tells you when this happened — but only if there were fields to lose.

    Frequently asked questions

    Is my file uploaded anywhere?

    No. The document is read and rebuilt inside your browser, and the password you type never leaves this page.

    Can you recover a password I forgot?

    No, and nobody can. A file closed with a user password is encrypted; guessing is the only route, and it is not something we do or offer.

    The file opens fine but will not let me print. Can that be fixed?

    Yes, in a second. That is the owner-password case: the restriction is a note in the file that readers may honour, and removing it needs no password at all.

    Will anything be lost?

    Pages, text, images, page sizes and rotations all survive. Fillable form fields survive most of the time and are lost when the file needs the long way round — the page says so. Document title and author are lost either way: encrypted metadata does not come back.

    Is it legal to remove the restrictions?

    That depends on the document and where you are. The tool is for files you are entitled to use — your own scans, your own reports, a form you were sent to fill in. It is not a way around someone else's rights.

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