How to remove the password from a PDF with Unlock

Unlock removes the open password from a PDF you already have the password for — the whole process runs in your browser, so neither the file nor the password ever leaves your device.

Before you start

• You need the PDF's password. Unlock removes a password you know; it is not a password cracker, and AttachKit can't recover a password you've lost.
• The file must be 100 MB or smaller. The drop zone caps files at 100 MB to keep your browser responsive.
• Unlock is free on every plan, with no usage cap.
• Everything stays local. AttachKit decrypts the PDF on your device, in this browser tab. The file and the password are never uploaded anywhere.

Steps

1. Open Unlock.
2. Drop your PDF onto the drop zone, or click it to pick a file. You'll briefly see Checking your-file.pdf… while AttachKit inspects the file locally.
3. If the file is password-protected, a card appears: This PDF is password-protected. Type the password you normally use to open the file into the PDF password field.
4. Click Unlock + download. The button reads Unlocking… while it works — usually a second or two, longer for large documents.
5. The unlocked copy downloads automatically with -unlocked added to the name (for example contract-unlocked.pdf). Your original file is not modified.
6. Optional: the success message asks Fill in this form next? — one click hands the unlocked copy straight to Fill, no re-upload needed.

If the file wasn't encrypted in the first place, AttachKit tells you: "This PDF isn't password-protected — there's nothing to unlock." You can use that file directly in Fill, Sign, or Redact.

If you typed the wrong password, you'll see "That password didn't open the PDF. Try again." — the password field stays put so you can retry, and nothing downloads until the password is right.

Lossless vs. flattened output

Unlock always tries to decrypt the PDF in place first, which keeps the document exactly as it was — just without the password. For a small number of files where that re-save isn't possible, it falls back to rendering each page as a high-resolution image:

If your copy was flattened, the download message says so and suggests running Searchable (OCR) to put a selectable text layer back — that OCR also runs entirely on your device.

Result

You get an unencrypted copy named …-unlocked.pdf that opens anywhere without a password — ready to fill, sign, redact, or share. The page count is preserved either way, and the password-protected original stays untouched on your device.

Related

• Protect — add a password back (or set permissions) once you're done editing
• Searchable (OCR) — restore selectable text if your unlock was flattened to images
• Fill — fill in the unlocked form with your saved details
• If the password keeps getting rejected or the file won't load, see the Unlock troubleshooting article.