Unlock PDF
Remove the password from a PDF you have access to.
Free, no uploads, no sign-up. Runs 100% in your browser.
How Unlock PDF works
Unlock PDF runs entirely in your browser. Remove the password from a PDF you have access to. Under the hood it uses @cantoo/pdf-lib (a pdf-lib fork that can read and write password-encrypted PDFs), pdf-lib (a pure-JavaScript library that creates and edits PDF structure (pages, text, images, forms)) and PDF.js (Mozilla’s PDF renderer, used for thumbnails, previews and text extraction (runs in a Web Worker)). Your files are read into this tab’s memory, processed on your own CPU, and handed back to you as a download. Nothing is sent to a server.
Input: PDF.
How to use Unlock PDF
- Drop your PDF onto the Unlock PDF area, or click to choose it.
- Wait a moment while page thumbnails render locally.
- Choose the pages and options you need. Previews update as you go.
- Press the main action button and download the finished PDF.
Tips
- You must know the password; this tool removes it from a copy you are allowed to open, it does not crack passwords.
Unlock PDF FAQ
- Are my files uploaded?
- No. This tool runs entirely in your browser tab. Files are read from your disk into memory and the result is generated locally.
- Is it free? Are there limits or watermarks?
- Free and open source (MIT). There are no file-size caps, daily quotas, accounts or watermarks.
- Does it work offline?
- Yes, once the page (and any engine it needs) has loaded, it keeps working without a connection thanks to the service worker cache.
Related tools
- Protect PDF: Encrypt a PDF with a password and set print/copy permissions.
- Compress PDF: Shrink PDF size with smart image downsampling and stream compression.
- Merge PDF: Combine multiple PDFs into one ordered document with drag-and-drop sorting.
- Split PDF: Split by ranges, every N pages, or extract each page into a ZIP.