How to delete pages from a PDF

Deleting a page from a PDF means writing a new document that holds every page except the ones you picked. The pages that stay are copied across untouched — same text, same image resolution, no second round of compression — so the result is the original minus a few sheets, not a re-rendered version of it.

The quickest route here: open Delete PDF Pages, drop the file, then either click the page thumbnails you want gone or type their numbers in the box (2, 5, 9-12 works), and click Delete. The new PDF downloads and your original file is left exactly as it was. Nothing is uploaded, which matters when the pages you are removing are the ones with your bank details on them.

Where you can delete pages, and what each way costs you

Method	Good for	Watch out for
A browser tool like this one	Any device, nothing to install, the file stays local	Very large scans depend on your device's memory
macOS Preview	A file already on a Mac, one or two pages	Mac only; save a copy first, it edits in place
The Files app on iPhone or iPad	A quick fix on the phone	The menu has moved between iOS versions
Acrobat Pro, PDFsam, LibreOffice Draw	The same job every week, or scripting it	Installation, and a subscription for Acrobat
"Print to PDF" with a page range	Nothing, really — see below	Breaks links, bookmarks and form fields

On macOS, open the PDF in Preview, show the sidebar with View → Thumbnails, click the page you want to remove, press Delete, then save. Preview edits the file you opened, so duplicate it in the Finder first unless you are sure. On Windows there is no built-in way to delete a page: Edge displays PDFs but cannot change their pages, and "Microsoft Print to PDF" with a page range sends the document back through the print pipeline, which flattens form fields and drops links and bookmarks. It is a last resort, not a method. On iPhone and iPad, recent versions of the Files app let you open a PDF, switch to the page view and delete a page from there; Apple has moved that menu around between iOS releases, so if you cannot find it, a browser does the job in Safari.

Picking the right pages

Type ranges with commas: 2, 5, 9-12 removes page 2, page 5 and pages 9 through 12. Clicking thumbnails fills the same box, so you can start by clicking and then fine-tune the text, or the other way round.

Two things trip people up every time:

Printed page numbers are not PDF page positions. A report with a cover sheet and a contents page prints "1" on the third sheet. The ranges count sheets from the front of the file, starting at 1, and ignore whatever is printed on them. Open the file in a viewer, go to the page you want gone, and read the position the viewer reports — that is the number to type.

You cannot delete every page. A PDF with no pages is not a valid file, so the tool stops you. If what you actually want is the pages you selected rather than the ones you did not, use Extract PDF pages instead: same thumbnails, opposite logic, one new file containing your selection.

What deleting changes, and what it does not

• The removed pages are genuinely gone. The surviving pages are copied into a brand-new document, so the text and images of the deleted ones are not carried along in the file where someone could dig them out.
• The remaining pages keep their quality. Nothing is re-rendered or re-compressed, so text stays selectable and photos keep their resolution.
• The file gets smaller, roughly in proportion. Not exactly: a font or a logo used across the document still has to be embedded once in the new file.
• Printed page numbers do not renumber. If the document shows "Page 7 of 20" in its footer, that text is part of the page image and still says 20 after you delete three pages. Strip the old footer by deleting it as text is not possible here; what works is adding a fresh set with Add page numbers to a PDF, which draws over the page, or going back to the source document and exporting again.
• Bookmarks and internal links that pointed to a deleted page break. A table of contents entry for a page that no longer exists leads nowhere.
• Form fields can be affected. Interactive fields belong to the document as much as to the page; if the filled answers must survive, fill the form and flatten it before deleting anything.
• A scan stays a scan. Removing pages from an image-only PDF leaves image-only pages. Nothing here performs character recognition.

Deleting a page is not the same as hiding information

This is the mistake with the highest cost, so it is worth being blunt about it.

If the problem is a whole page you should not have included, deleting it is the right answer and the data really does leave the file. If the problem is a line, a name, a figure or a signature on a page you need to keep, deleting the page is not an option and drawing a black rectangle over it in a viewer is worse than doing nothing: the text sits underneath the shape, intact and selectable, and anyone can copy it out in two seconds. Several organisations have published documents that way and had the "redacted" names read out by the press the same day.

Redact PDF exists for that case: it removes the characters themselves from the page content rather than covering them. If you only need to be sure, test your own output — select the area in a viewer and press Ctrl-C, or run it through PDF to Text and read what comes back.

Common problems, and what they mean

"This PDF is password-protected." An encrypted file cannot be rewritten until it is decrypted. If you have the password, remove it with Unlock PDF, delete the pages, then protect the result again if it holds personal data. Without the password, no tool here can open it, and none of them guess.

The wrong pages disappeared. Almost always the printed-number trap above. The thumbnails are the safest route: what you click is what goes.

The tab slows down or stops responding. Everything runs in your browser, so a few hundred megabytes of scans compete with the memory the browser is already using. Close other tabs, or work in two passes.

I need to remove pages and reorder the rest. Do it in one place: Organize PDF moves, duplicates and removes pages on the same thumbnail grid.

I need each remaining section as its own file. That is a split, not a delete — Split PDF cuts one document into several by ranges, every N pages, or one file per page.

The result is still too heavy to email. Page count is rarely where the weight is; scanned images usually are. How to compress a PDF goes through what actually shrinks a file.

Questions people ask

Does deleting pages change the original file? No. A new PDF is written and downloaded; the file you dropped in is untouched. Nothing is uploaded either, so the document stays on your device.

How many pages can I delete at once? As many as you like, as long as at least one page remains. Click them or type the ranges in one go.

Can I undo it? Not inside the tool, but you do not need to: your original is still on your disk. Keep it until you have checked the new file.

Will the deleted pages still be recoverable from the new PDF? No. The pages that stay are copied into a fresh document, so the content of the removed ones is not written into the output at all.

Does it work on a phone? Yes, in the phone's browser, and it is a reasonable way to deal with a PDF you were just emailed. Very large scans are slower on a phone than on a laptop.

Can I delete a page out of a scanned document? Yes. Page removal does not care whether a page holds text or an image of text.

Is there a watermark or a page limit? No watermark and no page limit. Files up to 200 MB are accepted.

Next steps

• Keep a selection instead of removing one: Extract PDF pages
• Reorder what is left: Organize PDF
• Take out text on a page you are keeping: Redact PDF
• Split the document into several files: the guide How to split a PDF