Remove PDF password in case of owner password
PDFUnlock!
If you want to remove PDF password but do not intend to use special programs on your computer I suggest you resort to the use of PDFUnlock!. It is a free online service that can remove all major PDF limitations, including passwords, in a matter of seconds.
To remove PDF passwords with PDFUnlock! the first thing you need to do is then to click here to connect to the service's web page. Then click on the button My computer located in the center of the page to select the password protected PDF document from any folder on your computer. Eventually you can also act on documents stored on your Dropbox or Google Drive account by simply clicking on the relevant buttons.
After selecting the file click on the button Unlock and wait a few seconds for the service to process the document by removing the PDF password.
Once the procedure is complete, the download of the PDF without a password will automatically start on your computer. Open it with any PDF file reader so you can see the removal of the password present in the original version of the document.
Online2PDF
Another great online service thanks to which you can remove PDF passwords is Online2PDF. This is a free service that allows you to process a maximum number of 20 files simultaneously for a total weight of 100MB.
To remove PDF password with Online2PDF the first thing you need to do is to click here to connect to the main web page of the service. Then press the button Select files and indicates the document stored on your computer on which you wish to act. Then press the button Converted and wait a few moments for the procedure to remove PDF password to start. If it is your intention to try to remove PDF passwords by acting on multiple documents simultaneously, select them before pressing the button Converted by clicking Browse….
Once the procedure is finished, the download of the PDF without a password will automatically start on your computer. To check that everything went well and that the password has actually been removed, I suggest you try to open the file with any PDF reader installed on your multimedia station.
I want to underline that PDFs obtained with Online2PDF do not include fillable fields. This means that if you try to unlock a PDF containing forms, they will no longer be fillable after conversion (in the output file, the input file will remain intact).
Remove PDF password in case of user password
PDFCrack
If you need to remove the PDF password and the document you intend to act on is protected by a user password, I invite you to use PDFCrack. This is a free and open source program available for both PC Windows for both Mac. The program, it should be emphasized, does not have a graphical interface so to be able to use it it is necessary to act as a command line.
If you use a Windows PC and want to remove PDF password with PDFCrack, the first thing you need to do is to click here so that you can connect to the program's website. Then presses on the voice Download located in the right sidebar.
Then wait for the download of the program to start and complete, then open the ZIP archive that contains the software and extract the contents to any folder.
Now press and hold the button Shift on the keyboard then right-click on the folder where you extracted the program files and select the item Open command window here give the menu to compare.
Once this is done it will open the Command Prompt. Now type the command pdfcrack file.pdf (where instead of file.pdf you have to type the path and the complete name of the document to be unlocked) and wait for the program to start working.
If PDFCrack manages to find the keyword and therefore to remove the PDF password, you will see the message found user-password followed by the password required to view the PDF content.
If you are using a Mac, click here to connect to the PDFCrack website. Then click on the link located next to the entry Looking for the latest version? and wait for the program download procedure to start and complete.
Then open the TAR archive that contains the software, extract the contents in any folder, open the terminal of OS X (you can access it from the Other of Launchpad or by typing terminal in Spotlight and double clicking on the first search result that is shown to you) and give the command first cd [path where you extracted PDFCrack] (instead of path where you extracted PDFCrack you will have to indicate the path referring to the position on the Mac where you proceeded to extract the program) and then the command make -f makefile.
Finally, open a new Terminal window and type [path where you extracted PDFCrack] / pdfcrack -u [path and name of the PDF to be unlocked] (instead of path where you extracted PDFCrack you will have to indicate the path referring to the position on the Mac where you proceeded to extract the program while in place of path and name of the PDF to unlock you will have to indicate the path referring to the location on the Mac where the PDF to act on is located and the name of the same).
How to remove PDF password
