How to remove a password from a PDF (and what if you forgot it)

First, which password is it?

A PDF can carry two different passwords, and they behave very differently.

• An open password (sometimes called a user password). The file asks for it before showing anything. Without it, the contents are encrypted data, not a document with a lock on the front.
• A permissions password (an owner password). The file opens normally, but printing, copying text or editing is greyed out. The contents are readable; the restrictions are instructions that PDF readers are expected to follow.

What a PDF password actually protects explains the difference in more detail.

If you know the password

1. Open Unlock PDF and choose the file.
2. Type the password the file asks for.
3. Download the copy. It has the same pages, text, images, form fields and bookmarks, and opens without asking for anything.

The password is used to decrypt the file and then discarded; it is not stored. Keep the protected original if you might need it, and remember that the unlocked copy can now be read by anyone who gets hold of it.

Desktop programs can do the same thing: open the file with the password, then save or print a copy with the security settings switched off.

If it opens but will not let you print or copy

That is a permissions password. Most readers honour those restrictions by convention, and saving a decrypted copy through Unlock PDF usually removes them along with the encryption. If the tool asks for a password, the file has an open password as well, and the section above applies.

Restrictions are often set by the sender on purpose. If the document is not yours, the right move is to ask for a version you are allowed to print or copy from.

If you forgot the password

There is no reset. A PDF's open password is not stored anywhere that can be looked up; it is part of the key that unlocks the contents. Without it the file cannot be read, and that is the point of the protection.

• Ask the sender. Banks, payroll systems and tax portals often protect statements with something predictable that they tell you about — a date of birth, part of an account or ID number. Their help pages usually say which.
• Download it again. The original source can often give you a fresh copy, sometimes without protection.
• Look for the unprotected original. If you protected it yourself, the file you started from may still be on your computer or in your email's sent items.

Programs that promise to recover a forgotten password do so by guessing, which works only on short or common passwords and can take a very long time on anything else. iBuildPDF does not guess or break passwords.

After the password is gone

An unlocked PDF is an ordinary file again: you can compress it, merge it with others or sign it, none of which work on an encrypted file. If it needs protecting again before you send it on, Protect PDF adds a new password of your choosing.