Password is added to a PDF to prevent unauthorized access to the content, it enhances the security of private and confidential files. However, we may forget the password, may receive an encrypted file without knowing the password but have legal access to, or just want to make a file public and manipulable to our team members. In these cases, we need to remove the password from PDF files.
In this tutorial, we will show you 6 ways to remove password protection from PDF on Mac, with or without using the preset passwords.
There are 2 types of PDF passwords, user (open) password and owner (permission) password. The user password is used to protect a PDF file from opening, while the owner password is used to prevent others from copying or printing. If you know the password, things would be much easier to remove both user and owner password, but if the password is unknown, it is more tricky to deal with the unknown user password than the unknown owner password.
Luckily, no matter your PDF files are protected by a user password or owner password, known or unknown, we have the best solution for you---Cisdem PDF Password Remover.
Cisdem PDF Password Remover is a standalone application to remove both user and owner password protection from PDF on Mac and Windows. It removes user password directly, auto detects if the PDF is protected with a user password and offers 2 solutions: remove with password, decrypt without password. Cisdem PDF Password Remover supports batch remove password protection from multiple PDFs.
Cisdem PDF Password Remover Main Features
Free Download macOS 10.13 or later 
Free Download macOS 10.13 or later 
Also, you can refer to following YouTube video tutorial:
I see a lot of users are asking if we can remove password from PDF on Mac using Adobe Reader. Actually, you can remove password from PDF in Adobe Reader, it offers 7-day free trial, allowing users to access to its full features, including Remove Security. However, if your free trial expires, you will have to install and subscribe Adobe Acrobat to get your password removed. In addition, it can only remove restrictions with known passwords.
Is there any way to remove password from PDF on mac without installing software? Yes, use Preview.
Same as Adobe Reader DC, Preview can open, view, print and markup PDF files. It can remove owner password without entering the password. However, you cannot remove user password even you know the password, the exported PDF file from the user-password protected PDF is just a blank page.
If you don't have any PDF tools at hand, you can use online free PDF Password Removers to make your PDFs unlocked on Mac. There are multiple choices, but basing on our testing, most of online PDF password removal services can remove owner password protections only, few of them is capable of remove user password restrictions, even it is not likely to decrypt a PDF password protected with a complicate user password. However, ilovepdf is still a good choice to remove PDF password online.
Looking for more options to remove PDF password on Mac? There are 2 alternatives, with a PDF Editor or a PDF Password Remover.
It is a Mac&Windows PDF Editor with a wide collection of tools to sign, edit, manage, share, comment and create professional PDFs. What’s more, it allows protecting and unprotecting PDF files with known passwords, however, you cannot batch remove password from your PDFs using this program.
It is a drag-n-drop program to batch remove password from PDFs on Mac, very easy to use. You can remove both user and owner password, however, you have to enter the correct user password to remove the security from a user-password protected PDF. Also, it is pitiful that iStonsoft just supports macOS 10.7 to 10.12, thought it works properly on my macOS 10.13, you can still give it a try on macOS 10.14 or newer.
Today, there are less and less PDF Password Removers online or offline available to remove security from a PDF file, such a feature is more likely added to a PDF editor, which is often expensive. If you are dealing with PDF files protected by a user or owner password, Cisdem would be a great choice to help you manipulate the files more easily and conveniently.
Carolyn has always been passionate about reading and writing, so she joined Cisdem as an editor as soon as she graduated from university. She focuses on writing how-to articles about PDF editing and conversion.
