Password protect a PDF
Put a password on a PDF before you send it — done inside your browser, so neither the file nor the password ever reaches us.
Free · No sign-up · Your file never leaves your computer
No file handy? — generated here, not downloaded.
Keep your unprotected original. A forgotten password cannot be recovered by us or by anyone.
How to use it
- 1
Choose the PDF.
- 2
Set an open password if the contents are the secret.
- 3
Or set restrictions only, if people may read it but not print or copy.
- 4
Download, and keep your unprotected original somewhere safe.
When you would use this
Putting a password on a PDF is what people do just before emailing something they would rather not have forwarded — a contract, a fee proposal, a payroll summary, a scan of an identity document.
There are two different passwords and they do very different things. The open password encrypts the document: without it, the file cannot be read at all, by anyone, including us. The permissions password leaves the document readable but tells readers what a viewer may do with it — print, copy text, edit. If the contents are the secret, you want the first one. The second alone protects nothing from anybody determined.
Be clear about how strong the restrictions are. The open password is genuine encryption and is as strong as the password you choose. The permissions are advisory: they are honoured by well-behaved PDF readers and ignored by software that chooses not to, and stripping them is not difficult. “No printing” keeps an honest person honest. It is not a control, and treating it as one is how confidential material ends up somewhere it should not be.
Nobody can recover a forgotten password. That is the point of encryption, and it is worth saying plainly because people protect a document, delete the original, and then need it. Keep the unprotected file somewhere safe before you do this.
The reason to do this here rather than on a typical online tool is the obvious one. Almost every alternative uploads your document and your password to a server to do the work — which means, for a moment, both halves of the thing you are trying to protect exist together on somebody else's machine. Here the encryption happens on yours, and neither is ever transmitted.
A last practical note: a password sent in the same email as the file protects nothing. Send it another way, or agree it in advance.
Questions
- Do you see my password?
- No. The encryption happens inside your browser, so neither the document nor the password is ever transmitted. On this tool in particular that matters — anywhere that asks you to upload both is asking for both halves of what you are protecting.
- What is the difference between the two passwords?
- The open password is needed to view the document at all. The permissions password only restricts what a viewer may do — print, copy, edit — while still letting anyone open it. Set the open password if the contents are the secret.
- Can the restrictions be bypassed?
- The permissions are advisory: they are enforced by well-behaved PDF readers and can be stripped by software that chooses not to honour them. The open password is real encryption. Do not rely on 'no printing' to protect anything that actually matters.
- I forgot the password — can you recover it?
- No, and nobody can. The file is encrypted with it and we never had either. Keep a copy of the original unprotected document somewhere safe before you protect it.
- Will it still open on a phone?
- Yes. This uses standard AES encryption that every current PDF reader supports, including the ones built into iOS and Android.
Related tools
Passwords because there is nowhere safe to put the file
Ofivio gives each document a home and each person a role, so a fee schedule is invisible to a subcontractor without anybody encrypting anything.
See Ofivio