Check whether a PDF is password protected and save an unlocked copy using a password you know. Fast, free, and built for simple browser-based workflows.
No file selected yet. The file and password stay in your browser and are never uploaded.
Choose a PDF, then click Check Protection.
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PDF Password Helper is a free online tool for a PDF you already have the password for. It tells you whether a document is encrypted, checks that the password you hold really opens it, and then saves an unlocked copy that anyone can open without typing anything. It cannot recover or bypass a password nobody knows.
That covers the everyday version of this problem: the payslip or bank statement your bank encrypts with your date of birth, which you would rather not retype every single month; an insurance document that has to be forwarded to a broker who does not have the password; a file you protected yourself years ago and now want to archive plainly. Check Protection is useful on its own too, when you simply want to know whether a document is encrypted before you send it on. If the password is genuinely lost, nothing here will help, and no honest tool running in a browser could - the file has to come again from whoever issued it.
Your file and the password you type both stay inside your browser and are never sent to this site, which is the only reason typing a bank password into a web page is reasonable at all. It is worth being plain about how the copy is made: the document is opened with your password, every page is redrawn onto a canvas, and those pictures are stitched into a new PDF that carries no encryption. The pages look and print the same, but the text in that copy is a flat image, so it can no longer be selected, copied or searched, and the file is often heavier than the original rather than lighter. PDF Metadata Viewer is worth a look afterwards, since document properties travel into the copy, and the PDF Compress tool is where to go if the rebuilt file is bigger than you want. The pdf.js and jsPDF libraries load from a public CDN when you press a button, so this page needs a connection.
Click Choose PDF File and pick the document. The line underneath confirms its name and size. Nothing is read from it until you press a button.
Click Check Protection. A green banner means the file already opens without a password and nothing needs unlocking. An amber one means it is encrypted and the password has to be typed in.
Type it into the Password box, ticking Show password if you want to see what you typed, then click Check Protection again. Green confirms the password opens the file and gives its page count; red means it was refused.
Click Create Unlocked Copy. Each page is redrawn and rebuilt into a new unencrypted PDF, counted off page by page as it goes, which is what turns the text into a flat image. Click Download Unlocked PDF to save it under the original name plus -unlocked.
Yes! All our tools are 100% free to use with no hidden costs, no registration required, and no credit card needed.
Absolutely. All tools run entirely in your browser (client-side). Your data never leaves your device and is not sent to our servers.
Yes! All our tools are free for both personal and commercial use.
No, and it does not try. There is no guessing, no wordlist and no brute force here: a wrong password is simply refused and the tool says so. If the password is lost, ask whoever issued the document to send it again, or look for it in the email or letter that delivered the file.
Because of how the copy is built. The original is opened with your password, each page is redrawn as a picture, and those pictures are assembled into a fresh unencrypted PDF. The result looks and prints the same, but the words are part of an image, so Ctrl+F and copy and paste no longer find them.
No. The password stays in the page you are looking at and is used only to open the document in your own browser. It is not transmitted to this site, not stored, and it disappears the moment you click Clear or close the tab. Nothing about the file leaves your machine either.
Choose the file and click Check Protection with the Password box empty. The tool first tries to open the document with no password: if that works you get a green banner and the page count, and if it does not you get an amber banner saying the file is password protected.
That the document is encrypted and the password you entered is not the one it wants. Check for a stray space, a wrong capital letter or a keyboard layout problem, and remember that many bank files use a date or an ID number in a particular format. The tool cannot work the password out for you.
Yes. Each page in the new file is created at the same width, height and orientation as the page it came from, measured in points, so an A4 document stays A4 and a landscape drawing stays landscape. Pages are rendered at double scale first, so print quality holds up well.
Usually the opposite. Rebuilding from rendered pages replaces compact text with a picture of each page, so the copy is frequently larger, especially for documents that were mostly text. Making a PDF smaller is a different job, and the PDF Compress tool is the one built for it.
A file like that carries permission restrictions rather than an open password, so it opens with no prompt and is reported here as not password protected. Only use a document in ways you are entitled to: restrictions are often there for licensing or confidentiality reasons, and ignoring them can be a legal problem.