Unlock PDF

Stop typing the same password every time

Statements, payslips and letters often arrive as PDFs protected with a password, such as part of your account number or your date of birth. That protection makes sense in an inbox, but it gets in the way when you want to keep the file in your own records, print it, or attach it to a form that can’t open protected files. If you know the password, this tool saves a copy that opens without one.

How to unlock

1. Choose up to 10 PDFs, each up to 100 MB. They all need the same password.
2. Type the password you use to open them.
3. Press Unlock the PDF and download the unlocked copies. Each one is named with “-unlocked” added.

Your own password only

The tool works only with the password that opens the file. A wrong password gets a clear message, and nothing is made: there’s no guessing and no way around it. PDFs that open without a password but limit printing or copying are left alone too, because those limits belong to whoever made the document.

When it’s a good idea, and when it isn’t

• Good: your own documents, kept on your own devices or in a protected folder, or a copy for a form that can’t open protected files.
• Think twice before sending an unlocked copy by email or keeping it on a shared computer: the password was protecting it. To protect it again later, use Protect PDF.

Finding the password

Banks, payroll providers and government offices usually explain the password in the email or letter that came with the file, often a mix of your date of birth, part of an account or reference number, or your postcode. Check that message first, including its small print. If it still doesn’t work, contact the sender: this tool can’t recover or guess a password, by design.

Good to know

• The copy keeps everything else: pages, text, pictures, links and form fields stay as they were.
• Several files with different passwords need to be unlocked one password at a time.