Adding password to PDF files makes it secure and prevents any unauthorized access. Many organizations like national banks send the monthly statements in the form of password protected PDF files to your registered email account. If you want to save them for later reading, you need to enter the password every time you re-open the locked PDF file. It is better you disable the password lock from the PDF file before saving and avoid putting the password again-and-again. Here is how to remove password from PDF file.
Three Ways To Remove Password From PDF File
To make things easier for you, we’ll use three convenient ways to remove password from PDF files. The first trick works in all operation systems which is more convenient. The second one is to use a third party tool which allows you removing any password from a PDF document. The third one is the official way to disable password protection in a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat Pro. In both tricks, we assume that you know the the encryption key for the file. There is no easy way to Remove Password from a PDF file if you don’t know it.
1. Remove Password From PDF Files with Google Chrome
If you’re using Google Chrome browser at your Windows or Mac, you can use it to remove password protection from a PDF file – no other software is required. The Google Chrome browser has both the built-in PDF Reader and PDF Writer features. Combining those two features we can easily remove any password from the PDF documents. Here is how to do it.
- Open the PDF file with your Chrome browser (simply drag the file into Chrome). If you do not have any password protected PDF file at this time, you can use this sample PDF file – the password is “oxhow” without the quotes.
- It will now prompt you to enter the password for the file. Type the password into the box and hit the Enter key. It will open the file in Chrome browser.
- Now, go to File menu of the browser and select the “Print” option (or, press Ctrl + P in Windows or press Cmd + P in Mac). Then click on the “Change” button under the “Destination” section. Select “Save as PDF” as the destination and then press the “Save” button.
Now, the file will be saved as PDF file but without password protection. If you re-open the newly saved file, no password will be needed to open it.
If you want to save the password-removed PDF file directly into your Google Drive, you need to enable Google Cloud Print. Once enabled, change the destination as “Save to Google Drive” and then press the ‘Save’ button. This will save the unprotected version of the PDF file directly into your Google Drive account.
The above method would works on all operating system provided that the Google Chrome is installed in it. You can also use the same trick PDF printers as well. For instance, Windows 10 provides a default PDF printer. So, you can do the same using Microsoft Edge or other application using the default PDF printer on Windows 10.
Unlock PDF files in Microsoft Edge
To test the above trick, open any password protected PDF file in Microsoft Edge and find out the “Print” button in the PDF viewer toolbar and click on it.
Choose “Microsoft Print To PDF” and click the “Print” button. It will prompt for the location to save the file. The same trick can be done with any PDF viewer in Windows 10. what you need to do is to select the printer as the default Microsoft Print To PDF printer.
The same trick also works on other operating systems. On Mac, you can do the PDF printing with Preview, or any other application as PDF viewer and the default built-in PDF printer.
Open the protected PDF document in Preview and enter the password. Now, click File > Print to open the print dialog box.
Select “Save as PDF” from the “PDF” menu drop-down and click the “Print” button. A new PDF file will be generated and save at your selected location.
2. Removing PDF Passwords Without Chrome
If you do not have Google Chrome browser in your PC or you do not like to use it, you can download the free Windows application BeCyPDFMetaEdit to remove the password from PDF file.Launching the program and change the mode to “Complete Rewrite” before opening the file. Once you open the PDF file with this utility, head to the Security tab and set “Security System” to “No encryption” and save the file. You’ve successfully removed the password from the PDF.
3. Official Method to Remove Password Protection From PDF
This method is the more reliable way to remove the encryption permanently fro the PDF file. You can do it officially by using the Adobe Acrobat Pro, a paid software. It is a different application from the Adobe Acrobat Reader which the maximum people have and you should not mix it with the application in use for the trick. The Acrobat Pro is a paid application but Adobe offers a one week free trial. This application works even if the printing is disabled for the PDF file and you can’t print that file using the other tricks.Run Adobe Acrobat Pro open the PDF file in it and enter its password to view the content of the file. Now, click the lock icon which is at the left side of the application window and click on “Permission Details”. You can also navigate to File > Properties and then click the “Security” tab.
Here, click the “Security Method” box, then, select “No Security”, and finally, click “OK” to remove the password protection.
Save the file and you’ve successfully removed the password protection from the PDF file.
Conclusion
If you get plenty of password protected PDF files regularly, we recommend you to remove the password from your PDF files and save them to your Google Drive account as it has already 2-layer security system – there should not be any risk for your documents here.
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