Important: you must know the password
PDFKing can only remove protection from PDFs where you already know the password. This tool is for legitimate owners who want to remove a password they set themselves — for example, to share a document without requiring recipients to enter a password every time.
PDFKing cannot crack or bypass passwords on PDFs you don't have the password for. That would be unauthorised access.
Step-by-step: Remove a PDF password with PDFKing
Open the Unlock PDF tool
Go to pdfking.net/unlock.html and upload your protected PDF.
PDFKing detects the encryption
The tool automatically checks whether your PDF is encrypted. If it is, a password field appears. If the PDF is not protected, you'll see a message confirming it's already open.
Enter the password
Type the current password for the PDF. If you enter the wrong password, the field shakes and clears so you can try again.
Download the unlocked PDF
Click Remove Password & Download. Your fully unrestricted PDF is saved to your device.
What gets removed?
The Unlock tool removes both the open password (required to view the file) and all permission restrictions (printing, copying, modifying). The resulting PDF is completely unrestricted — anyone can open and use it freely.
Frequently asked questions
What if I forgot the password?
PDFKing cannot recover or bypass forgotten passwords. If you've genuinely lost the password to your own document, you may need to recreate the file from its original source.
My PDF opens fine but I can't print or copy — can PDFKing fix that?
Yes. Some PDFs have no open password but have an owner password that restricts printing or copying. PDFKing's Unlock tool handles this case — upload the file and click unlock (no password entry needed). The restrictions will be removed.
Does this work for PDFs protected by Adobe Acrobat?
Yes. PDFKing uses the qpdf library which handles all standard PDF encryption including files protected by Adobe Acrobat, Preview on Mac, and other PDF tools.