Type it twice so a typo cannot lock you out of your own document.
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Protect and download
The new file asks for that password every time it is opened.
Why password protect a PDF
Email is not private. A payslip, a contract, an ID scan or a medical report can be forwarded, printed or left open on a shared machine without anyone meaning any harm. A password does not make a document unforwardable, but it does mean that forwarding it alone is not enough to read it.
The sensible pattern is to send the file one way and the password another — the document by email, the password by phone or message. Sending both in the same email achieves nothing.
Worth knowing
Keep the password. It is not stored anywhere and cannot be recovered — not by you and not by us.
Send it separately. A password in the same email as the file is decoration, not security.
Encryption is real. The document is genuinely encrypted, not merely marked as restricted.
It can be removed. If you have the password, our Unlock PDF tool takes it back off.
What happens to your files
Worth being straight about this, because it differs from most tools on this site. Our word counter and JSON formatter run entirely inside your browser and send nothing anywhere. PDF work is not like that — it has to open and rewrite the document structure, which is more than a browser does reliably across every PDF it might be handed.
So your file is uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our server, and the original is deleted as soon as the new file has been produced. The result sits behind a private download link that expires. Nothing is read, indexed or kept for any other purpose.
If a document is confidential enough that it must never leave your machine, use a desktop application instead. That is true of every online PDF tool, not just this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. No sign-up, no watermark on the output, no page limit and no trial that runs out. It is free because it is a useful thing to be known for, not because it is a sample of something paid.
The document cannot be opened. The password is not stored anywhere and there is no recovery — keep a copy somewhere safe before you send the file on.
Yes. The document is encrypted, not simply flagged as restricted. Without the password the contents cannot be read.
Yes, it is. The work has to happen on a server, so your file is uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed, and the original deleted as soon as the new file exists. The download link is private and expires. If a document must never leave your machine, use a desktop application instead.
Yes, as long as you know it. Our Unlock PDF tool removes the password from a file you can already open.
Yes. Pick the file from your phone's storage or from Drive, and the result downloads like any other file.
