How to remove PDF protection
- Drop in the protected PDF.
- If it needs a password to open, type the one you already have.
- Press Remove protection and download the unrestricted copy.
Questions people ask
Can this open a PDF if I do not know the password?
No. It uses the password you give it — there is no guessing, no wordlist and no attempt to work one out. If you do not have the password, this tool cannot help you and neither can any other honest one.
My PDF opens fine but will not let me print or copy. What is that?
That is an owner password, and it is the commonest reason people come here. The document is set to open for anyone, with flags asking readers not to print, copy or annotate it. Those flags are a convention rather than a lock — the file is encrypted with an empty password, so no password is needed to remove them. Drop it in and press the button.
Is removing those restrictions legitimate?
For a document you are entitled to read, generally yes — it is the same thing Acrobat does, and it is often the only way to make a PDF usable with a screen reader, since blocking text extraction also blocks assistive technology. What matters is that you have the right to the document in the first place. That is your call, not ours to police.
Which kinds of protection are handled?
All the ones in normal use: RC4 40-bit and 128-bit, AES-128, and AES-256 including the newest revision. If a document uses something else, you are told rather than handed a broken file.
Will the document be identical afterwards?
The pages, text, fonts and images are all preserved exactly — nothing is re-rendered or re-compressed. The only things removed are the encryption and the permission flags.
Is my document uploaded?
No. The decryption runs on your own device. Your password is never transmitted and is not stored anywhere.