Unlock a PDF
Take the password off a document — provided you know it — so you no longer have to type it at every opening. The decryption happens on your device.
Free · 100% local — nothing is uploaded- 1Choose the protected PDF and type its password.
- 2Run the removal of the protection.
- 3Download the unlocked document.
How to unlock a PDF
Choose the protected document, type the password you know, run the removal: you get the same document, without encryption, that no longer has to be unlocked at every opening. Annotations, form fields, bookmarks and links are preserved — it really is the same file, minus its lock. The decryption happens inside your browser, and neither the document nor the password is passed to anyone. People make this gesture when a bank statement arrives encrypted every month and has to be archived, when a protected document must be edited, or when the password has travelled through too many hands to be useful any more. Printing and copying restrictions, where they exist, fall with the encryption: the document becomes an ordinary file again.
If you do not know the password
It has to be said plainly: nothing can be done for you, and nobody honest will be able to. AES-256 encryption of a PDF has no back door; the services that claim to “unlock” a file whose password is lost in fact remove only the printing and copying restrictions, which are not encryption. If your file opens but refuses printing or copying, that is the case you are in, and it is settled here.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know the password?
Yes. Vélin does not break encryption and does not try to guess it: this tool removes a protection you hold the key to.
What about printing or copying restrictions?
Yes: a file that opens without a password but refuses printing or copying is freed here the same way, and leaves without those restrictions.
Is the decrypted document sent anywhere?
No — and that is exactly what counts here: a document whose protection is being removed is, by definition, a sensitive one.
Does the unlocked document keep its annotations and fields?
Yes, all of it: only the encryption layer is removed. Comments, completed form fields, bookmarks and links come out exactly as they were.
Why remove a protection rather than keep it?
Because a password typed twenty times a day ends up written down somewhere. On a document you consult often and that is no longer sensitive, taking it off beats weakening it.