How To Password Protect a PDF on Mac and Windows

In the digital age, privacy is getting more and more attention. When you don’t want others to read the contents of your PDF documents, putting a lock on your documents is also a great way to do so. Please read on to learn how to quickly password-protect a pdf on Windows and Mac.

Perhaps You Don’t Want to Miss: 12 Best PDF Editors for Windows, How to Edit A Secured PDF

How To Password Protect a PDF on Mac Using PDFgear

PDFgear is a completely free all-in-one PDF editor and manager with a wide range of features. You can use PDFgear to compress, crop, split, merge, convert, add comments, signature, highlight, or unlock PDFs. If you are a person who will frequently use PDF tools, then PDFgear can be a great alternative to Adobe. When you want to set a password for your PDFs, PDFgear will come to your aid. With the following button, you can get the PDFgear desktop application in one piece.

Step 1. Install PDFgear

Go to the website through the official channel to download PDFgear to your computer (or you can use PDFgear online processing tool directly).

Step 2. Import PDF File to PDFgear

Double-click the PDFgear desktop shortcut icon to enter the program. Click “Open File” in the box at the top of the main page to browse and add files locally. In the main interface, you can see all the functions are divided into six blocks: Hot Tools, Convert from PDF, Convert to PDF, Merge & Split, Compress PDF, and All Tools.

Step 3. Locate the Protect PDF Tool in PDFgear

When you upload the PDF file to PDFgear, you will automatically enter the edit mode. Similarly, you can see all the features shown on the home page in edit mode. Highlight, underline, add page numbers, rotate PDF, and so on. Here, we locate the penultimate function button – “Protect”, and click the “Protect” ribbon in the “Password” button. Also if you want to remove the password from PDF is just as simple.

Step 4. Set the Password in PDFgear

When you click on the “Password” button you can see a pop-up window, you need to first type in the password you want to set and then again to determine the case in case of a wrong password. Click “OK” to complete the settings after confirming that there are no errors. Finally, click the upper left corner of the Save button, and you can have a PDF document with a password.

How To Password Protect a PDF on Mac Using Preview

Preview is a very powerful tool that comes with Mac. If you are good at using it, you will get a very efficient office experience. Whether it is split PDF, combining PDF Files or converting PNG to PDF, or Converting PDF to Word, Preview allows you to quickly complete the operation. The following is a list of 3 steps for you to immediately password a PDF.

Step 1. Through Preview to open the PDF document you need to set the password and quickly enter the editing mode.

Step 2. Click the upper left corner of the “File-Print” into the print mode, and click the pop-up window in the lower left corner of the drop-down box “Save as PDF…”. . Then you will see another new pop-up window. In your choice of storage location, set the file name, theme, keywords, and other information, and click on the bottom of the “Security Options…” for custom password settings.

Step 3. Custom password. In Preview, “PDF Security Options” tab, check the “Require password to open document” and then type the same password twice to complete the operation of encryption of PDF documents. At the same time, you can also check the password required to unlock the PDF when copying and printing.

How To Password Protect a PDF on Windows Using Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat is certainly the first software program that most people will think of for processing PDF documents. Because it is powerful and famous enough. It is not only a very practical PDF Converter or an efficient PDF Combiner.

Step 1. Open a PDF in Adobe Acrobat, and then jump directly to the “Protect” page.

Step 2. Select the “Protect Using Password” option to enter the password setting process.

Step 3. Set a difficult password to protect the PDF, and you can set whether it is readable or editable after decoding.

FAQs

How Do I Lock a PDF for Free?

Currently, many PDF editors are offering paid services or free trial services. However, PDFgear is a completely free tool. You can lock a PDF document in three steps: upload the PDF > click Protect > select Password > enter the password and click OK.

How to Password Protect a PDF on Windows 10?

How to password-protect a PDF document in Windows 10 has become a hot topic. Here we recommend using the PDFgear editing tool to protect your PDF documents. Upload the document that needs to be encrypted, click Protect-Password in editing mode in turn, and save it after entering the password.

Why Can’t I Password-Protect a PDF?

To password protect a PDF document, first, you need to go to File – Properties – Security, and then under “Security Method” select “Password Security”. Customize your settings, type in your password, and then complete the operation.

Can I Email a PDF With Password Protection?

Of course, you can. You just need to use the help of the PDFgear editor, select Protect-Password in edit mode and then go to password setting and saving. Then add the encrypted document in the form of an attachment to the email to send.

Conclusion

Secure and fast encryption settings for your PDF documents are what you are looking for. This is a very good solution that PDFgear can provide for you. Therefore, if you want to enjoy the ultimate experience without paying any money, PDFgear, the all-in-one PDF editor, will be your best choice.