Remove PDF Password

PDF protection lives in a single dictionary referenced from the trailer of the file: the /Encrypt entry (ISO 32000-2 §7.6.4). The dictionary names a security handler — almost always /Filter /Standard for password-protected PDFs — and records four fields the spec lists in Table 21: /V (algorithm version), /R (revision), /Length (key length in bits), and /P (a signed 32-bit bitmask of user-access permissions).

The tool runs in five deterministic steps, all in your browser:

1. Validate the file. Confirms the PDF type, a non-zero size, and a per-file cap of 100.0 MB. The first 1 KB is scanned for the literal %PDF-n.m header (§7.5.2), and the last 2 KB for the %%EOF terminator (§7.5.5). Files missing either are rejected with an explanation rather than a silent failure.
2. Find the /Encrypt dictionary. A two-pass byte-stream scan: pass one locates /Filter /Standard anywhere in the file; pass two independently confirms the trailer references /Encrypt N N R. The cross-check guards against partial detection on PDFs that store the dict in unusual locations.
3. Decode the permissions bitmask. The 32-bit /P value is treated as unsigned, then bits 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are isolated against named masks (4, 8, 16, 32, 256, 512, 1024, 2048). A 1 means the action is permitted; a 0 means denied. The breakdown panel above shows each bit's interpretation for the file you uploaded.
4. Classify the encryption variant. /V /R pairs map to RC4-40 (V=1/R=2), RC4-128 (V=2/R=3), AES-128 (V=4/R=3 or R=4), and AES-256 (V=5/R=5 or R=6). The first three are the variants pdf-lib's ignoreEncryption: true workflow handles cleanly for owner-restricted PDFs.
5. Rebuild without /Encrypt. On Remove Password, pdf-lib loads the document with encryption-check disabled, creates a fresh PDFDocument, copies every page from the source into it, then save() writes a brand-new file. The new file has no /Encrypt entry, a fresh xref table, and no /P bitmask — every restriction the original carried is gone.

The honest limit: pdf-lib does not contain RC4 or AES decryption code. For owner-restricted PDFs (the common case — printing or copying blocked, but no password to open) the content streams stay readable when the encryption dictionary is removed. For PDFs that need a user password to open, the content streams are real ciphertext that pdf-lib cannot decrypt, and the rebuilt file will appear blank. The FAQ below documents the Print-to-PDF workflow for that case.

• ISO 32000-2 — PDF 2.0 specification (encryption §7.6, standard handler §7.6.4, permissions Table 22)
• Adobe — PDF 32000-1:2008 (ISO 32000-1, freely available reference for the same encryption model)
• pdf-lib — MIT-licensed pure-JavaScript PDF library used for the encryption-free rebuild
• pdf-lib source on GitHub (open-source, audited)
• Sri Lanka — Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003 (copyright and technical protection measures)

The /Encrypt dictionary parser and the P-bitmask decoder were cross-checked against ISO 32000-2 on 2026-05-11. The pdf-lib dependency is pinned in package.json and re-verified on each major-version bump.