How to remove a password from a PDF on Mac — Preview, or a browser tab
To remove a password from a PDF on a Mac, open Unlock PDF in Safari, choose the file, type its open password or its permissions password, and click Unlock. A copy with the encryption gone downloads, made on the Mac. Preview's Export as PDF route is the other common answer, though we have not tested it.
Every Mac answer to this question starts the same way: open the file in Preview, type the password, save a fresh copy. That works, and for many files it is all you need. What those answers skip is that a PDF can carry two different passwords, and a file that opens without asking can still be locked.
How do I unlock a PDF file on my Mac?
Open Unlock PDF in Safari or Chrome, choose the file, type the password and click Unlock PDF. Either of the file's two passwords works: the one that opens it, or the permissions password that guards editing and printing. The encryption is removed on the Mac and an unlocked copy downloads.
Open the tool
Go to Unlock PDF in Safari, Chrome or any other browser on the Mac. There is nothing to install and no account.
Choose the protected PDF
Drag it onto the drop area or click to pick it from Finder. This is the one tool on the site that expects an encrypted file rather than turning it away.
Type a password
Enter the password the file opens with, or its permissions password if you have that instead. The Unlock PDF button stays disabled until the box has something in it.
Unlock and save
Click Unlock PDF. The copy is decrypted in the browser tab and downloads as yourfile_unlocked.pdf. The protected original is not changed.
How do I save a PDF without a password on a Mac?
In Preview, the widely shared route is to open the PDF, type its password, then choose File, Export as PDF, or print it with Save as PDF, and save the new copy. We have not tested these steps on a Mac. The browser route above removes the encryption itself rather than reprinting the pages.
Printing to PDF is a reprint, so form fields and other interactive parts may not come through as they were. Unlock PDF does not rebuild the document. It decrypts it and saves it again, so the title, the author and any fillable fields stay in the copy. How to remove a password from a PDF covers that in full.
Why does a PDF that opens fine still say it is locked?
Because it has a permissions password and no open password. Anyone can read it, but the file asks viewers to block printing, copying or editing. Preview is widely described as setting this kind of lock from its Permissions options. Removing it needs the permissions password: Unlock PDF accepts that password, and turns any other text away.
We tested this directly. We made a file that opens with no password but has a permissions password, and ran the real unlock code on it. With the permissions password, the copy came back with no encryption at all. With any other text, including random letters, the tool said the password was incorrect. A blank password is not an option, because the button stays disabled while the box is empty.
Does it matter how the PDF was locked?
Not for the encryption types we tested. PDFs can be locked with four common schemes, from old 40-bit RC4 up to 256-bit AES. We made one test file with each, read every unlocked copy back with a different PDF library from the one that wrote it, and all four came back with the text intact and no encryption left.
For each scheme, both passwords worked: the open password and the permissions password each produced the same unlocked copy, and a wrong password got the same error message every time. We did not have a file made by Preview itself to test, so a Preview-locked file was not part of the run.
How do I open a PDF file if I forgot my password?
You cannot, and neither can any honest tool. The contents are encrypted, and the password is the key. Unlock PDF does nothing until you type a password the file accepts. Mac apps and videos that promise to remove a password you do not know are guessing it at best, and a strong password defeats guessing.
If you hold only the permissions password, that is enough here: it unlocks the file even when it is not the password the file opens with. If you hold neither password, ask whoever sent the file for an unlocked copy.
Is it safe to unlock a PDF in a browser?
Here, yes. The file and the password stay in the browser tab: Unlock PDF decrypts the document on the Mac and the site has no server to receive it. What client-side PDF tools mean explains how to check that yourself. Just remember the downloaded copy is unprotected, so store it as carefully as the original.
Need the lock back on later? How to password protect a PDF covers adding one, and what a PDF password actually protects explains what each of the two passwords really does. On a phone, see how to unlock a PDF on iPhone.
