Remove pages from a PDF

Why would you delete pages from a PDF?

The usual reasons are blank pages, duplicates and content the recipient should not or need not see. Scanned documents often contain blank backs of single-sided sheets, a cover sheet from the scanner, or double pages when paper was fed twice. Downloaded reports come with ad pages, empty separators and legal boilerplate that nobody wants forwarded.

Removing those pages makes the file shorter to read, cheaper to print and less likely to leak information you did not mean to send. It also helps with upload portals that cap the number of pages or the file size, such as visa, university and insurance forms that accept ten pages or 5 MB at most.

Are deleted pages really gone from the new file?

Yes, deleted pages are fully gone, because the new PDF is built only from the pages you keep. The tool does not hide or flag the marked pages. It copies every unmarked page, in order, into an empty document with the pdf-lib library, and the marked pages are never copied at all.

Images and fonts that were used only on removed pages are left out too, so they cannot be recovered from the download. One caveat applies: content on the pages you keep is untouched. To hide a name or number on a remaining page, use Redact PDF, which removes the content under the black box instead of covering it.

What is the fastest way to pick pages?

The fastest way in long documents is to type page ranges and press Mark, then fine-tune by tapping. Tapping alone is fine for a handful of pages, but a 200-page scan with every second page blank is quicker with typed input or with the invert trick described in the list below.

• Type ranges such as 1, 3, 10-14 and press Mark to cross out many pages at once.
• Shift-click the first and last page of a block to mark everything in between.
• Invert flips the selection: mark the few pages you want to keep, then invert to delete the rest.
• Show only marked pages hides everything else so you can confirm the list before saving.
• Keep all clears every mark at once when you want to start the selection over without reopening the file.

What happens to the rest of the document?

The remaining pages are copied without being re-rendered, so text stays searchable and images keep their quality. Rotation and page sizes are preserved, and the title, author and keywords of the original are carried into the new file. If the PDF is password protected you are asked for the password first, and the result is saved without it.

Marked pages stay visible with a cross over them instead of vanishing, which makes it easy to change your mind: tap a crossed-out page again to keep it. The action button always states how many pages will go. Thumbnails are drawn by pdf.js only as you scroll to them, so even a document with several hundred pages opens quickly on a phone.

How do you delete PDF pages on iPhone, Android, Mac or Windows?

On every platform you open this page in the browser, choose the file, tap the pages and press Remove. On iPhone and iPad, pick the PDF from the Files app and find the result in the Downloads folder of Files. On Android, Chrome saves it to Downloads. The thumbnails are large enough to tap accurately on a 375-pixel-wide screen.

On a Mac or a Windows PC, drag the file from Finder or File Explorer onto the page. Shift-click works with a mouse or trackpad for marking a block of pages. Files up to 200 MB are accepted. If a very large scan makes a phone browser reload the tab, do the job on a computer, where the browser has more memory available.

When is another tool the better choice?

Another tool is better when you want to keep the removed pages, change the order, or hide part of a page. Split PDF saves the pages you take out as their own file. Organize PDF deletes, reorders and rotates in one pass. Redact PDF blacks out details on a page you still need.

A few document features do not survive page removal. Bookmarks are not carried over, because some of them would point to pages that no longer exist. Digital signatures stop validating, since the PDF specification treats any rewritten file as changed. Remove pages before a document is signed, not after.