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I have a PDF with a strong password (contains uppercase, lowercase letter, digits, special characters). Now I don't know what's the length of the password. All I care about is contents of the file.

I am trying PDF Password Cracker Enterprise v3.1 it allows you to specify min and max password length and uses a Brute-Force type of attack. Problem is brute force attack takes a hell lot of time. For past 24 hours it's running the attack but so far it has only reached 6 characters.

Any way I can remove the password without actually cracking it !?

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    Have you checked this :superuser.com/questions/86266/… ?
    – nex84
    Mar 15, 2016 at 9:45
  • @nex84 Yes I went through that thread you mentioned and the top answer led me to tool I have mentioned in my question viz. "PDF Password Cracker Enterprise v3.1"
    – abhishek14d
    Mar 15, 2016 at 9:56
  • There is only one way to remove the password from a password protected PDF file, and that of course, is to provide the password. Take this comment however, you want, but that is literally the only way. Even getting the author, themselves to do it, would involve providing the password.
    – Ramhound
    Mar 15, 2016 at 12:45
  • try MUPDF: mupdf.com/news - there's a windows command line tool called mutool.exe which you can use to remove the password: c:\> mutool clean protected.pdf clean.pdf
    – Sun
    Jul 22, 2016 at 14:47

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Any way I can remove the password without actually cracking it !?

Yes, ask the issuer for an unprotected version. It is as simple as that. Otherwise, you'd better respect the intention of the issuer.

Is the document protected with an user password (needed to open it) or with an owner password (needed to modify it)?

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  • Sometime I am the rightful owner of the PDF, trying to remove an old password on my payslip which I forgot.
    – Daniel Da Cunha
    Feb 8, 2020 at 2:12

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