I recently wanted to lock a PDF on my iPhone but there is no native way to do it and online services may have some privacy issues. Thankfully, there are a lot of third-party apps that let you lock your PDF. However, most of them ask for money or put this small feature behind a paywall. Enter AVI PDF Pro, a free and offline app that is built for creating and emerging PDFs. It also gives you a one-tap option to lock your PDFs without any hidden cost or future payments. Let’s check it out.
How to Password Protect PDFs on iPhone
Start by installing the AVI PDF Pro app from the App Store on your iPhone using this link. Once the app is downloaded, open it.
In this app, you can create a PDF from images, merge multiple PDFs, add watermark to your PDFs, and lock them with a password. Tap “Lock PDF with Password” and choose a PDF on your iPhone.
Tap iCloud to select the PDF from the Files app. It would show you all the PDF files stored on the Files app, select the file of your choice to proceed.
Once the PDF is selected, it won’t show a preview or a confirmation but the file is still selected. Proceed to enter the password for the PDF in the input field. After entering a strong password, tap Done.
Simply tap the Lock PDF button on the bottom and there you go, you’ve successfully locked the PDF. Tap Okay to proceed to save the PDF on the iPhone. The PDF that we have just created is a new copy of the PDF with a password. We’d save it to a new location. The original file is unchanged and does not contain the password.
The app would show you a locked preview of the PDF, you need to save it on your iPhone. Tap the Share button on the top right corner and select Save to Files.
Find a location for your PDF and tap Save on the top right corner to create a locked copy of the PDF.
Now, navigate to the new location and find the PDF we just saved with the app. Long press the PDF to bring up the pop-up menu and tap “Quick Look”.
You’d see that the PDF is locked and protected with a password. Tap the correct password and you’d see the preview of the PDF. You can now go ahead and share this PDF via Email or any other way.
Remove Password Protect PDFs on iPhone
In a situation where you’ve sent this locked PDF to someone else and you wish to remove the password from the file, doing it is really simple. They would need to know the actual password otherwise this method won’t work. I’d show you the steps to removing the lock on both the iPhone and a computer.
iPhone
Open the Avi PDF Pro on your iPhone and select “unlock PDF File” from the list of options. Now, tap the “Choose PDF” button.
The app would prompt you to open the file from the Files app. Tap “iCloud” and find the locked PDF file saved on your iPhone. Tap the PDF icon to load it.
Enter the correct password in the password field and tap the “Unlock PDF” button. That’s it, your PDF is now unlocked and the password has been removed permanently.
You would see the preview of the PDF file, tap the Share button on the top right corner, and hit Save to Files on the Share Sheet. You’ve successfully saved the unlocked PDF to your iPhone.
Closing Words
This was a quick way to lock an existing PDF with a password using an offline app for free. This method works great and creates a locked copy of the PDF right in the Files app. What do you think of this method, let me know in the comments below?
