Protect PDF

Some documents are fine to send but not fine to leave lying open on a shared laptop. Payslips, medical results, tenancy agreements and anything containing an ID number are the usual candidates, especially when they travel through email or a messaging app where forwarding is one tap away. Setting an open password means the file asks for something before it shows anything.

Choose a password you can send through a different channel than the file itself, since an email carrying both protects nobody. Encryption controls opening, not what happens next: once someone is in, they can read, copy and print the whole document as normal. Use something you can reproduce later rather than a long random string you will not remember.

There is no recovery path if the password is forgotten, so keep the unprotected original somewhere safe before you send the protected copy out. If you later want the password gone, pdf-unlock removes it as long as you can still type it. The password is applied inside your browser, so neither the document nor the password is ever sent to us.