Unlock a PDF: remove PDF restrictions online

Unlock a PDF by dropping it here: if the file opens but blocks printing, copying or editing, press Remove Restrictions on the toolbar and then Download, and the copy has no permission locks. This works only for owner-password restrictions. A PDF that asks for a password before it opens cannot be unlocked here; the viewer will tell you so, and the password has to be removed elsewhere first.

How to remove PDF restrictions

1. Drop the PDF here or click Open a PDF. If it displays, you are in the right place.
2. Click Remove Restrictions on the toolbar.
3. Press Download. The new file has no permission restrictions: printing, copying and annotating are allowed in any reader.

If instead the viewer shows "This PDF is password-protected", the file is encrypted with an open password. The viewer cannot read it and cannot unlock it. Remove the password with one of the tools in how to remove a password from a PDF, then come back if you also need the restrictions gone.

Two kinds of PDF locks

The reason the two behave so differently is explained on what are PDF passwords: an open password protects the data with real encryption, while a permissions password mostly asks readers to be polite.

What you get after unlocking

The downloaded PDF is written fresh by pdf-lib without the permission flags. In Adobe Acrobat Reader the Security tab of Document Properties shows no restrictions; Preview, Chrome, Edge and phone readers print and copy normally. The pages, text, images and existing annotations are the same as before. Nothing is added, removed or re-rendered.

Once unlocked, the file can also be edited here in the same session: highlight, add text, sign, or merge it with another PDF, then download once.

Privacy is the reason to do this in a browser tab rather than on an unlock website. A restricted PDF is often a contract, a bank statement or an internal report. Here the file is parsed by JavaScript on your machine, the restriction flags are dropped, and a new file is written to your Downloads folder; close the tab and nothing remains. A server-side unlock service has to receive the whole document to do the same job.

Limits, gotchas and the fair-use question

• Open passwords cannot be removed here. This is a hard limit of a browser viewer that never sees the password; see the guide linked above for desktop tools.
• Only your own documents, or documents you are allowed to use freely. Permission flags are usually set by the author for a reason. Removing them from a document you own, a form you must print, or a report you need to quote at work is routine; removing them from someone else's copyrighted material may breach the terms you received it under.
• Certified or DRM-wrapped files. PDFs protected by a rights-management server or a certificate policy are not simple permission flags and will not open or unlock here.
• Digital signatures. Rewriting a PDF that carries a certificate-based signature invalidates that signature in Acrobat; unlock a copy, not the signed original.

Alternatives for unlocking a PDF

• qpdf (command line, Windows, macOS, Linux): qpdf --decrypt in.pdf out.pdf removes restrictions; with an open password, add --password=..., which is the standard way to strip a known open password.
• pdftk: a similar command-line route with input_pw and output.
• Adobe Acrobat Pro: Remove Security in the Protect tools, given the permissions password.
• Preview on macOS: open the PDF (entering the open password if asked) and export it; the export carries no password.
• Chrome and Microsoft Edge: open the file, enter the open password, then print to PDF; the printed copy is unencrypted, though some documents forbid printing and the trick fails there.
• Google Drive: no unlock function in the preview.
• Smallpdf, iLovePDF: unlock tools that run on their servers after you upload the file, which is the thing to weigh for a confidential document.
• Xodo, PDF-XChange Editor: security settings can be cleared when you know the permissions password.

Frequently asked questions