How to remove pages from a PDF
- Drop your PDF into the zone above, or click to browse and select it.
- In the Pages to remove field, enter the page numbers you want to delete — for example
1, 3, 5-8removes pages 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. - Click Remove pages & download. The trimmed PDF saves directly to your device.
Everything runs in your browser using pdf-lib.
No file is sent to a server — open DevTools (F12) → Network while processing to verify zero upload requests.
When to remove pages from a PDF
- Removing a cover page before sharing — strip an internal title page or watermarked cover before forwarding a report to a client or colleague.
- Trimming a scanned document — a scanner often captures a blank page at the end of a duplex scan; remove it before filing or sharing.
- Cutting out irrelevant appendices — share just the body of a contract without boilerplate exhibits that the recipient does not need.
- Cleaning up extracted sections — after splitting a large PDF, remove any stray pages from the extracted chunk before sending it.
- Removing confidential pages before distributing — strip pages containing sensitive data, pricing information, or personal details before sharing a document more widely.
- Reducing file size — a quick way to reduce PDF size without re-encoding: remove high-resolution image pages you no longer need in the output.
How to remove pages from a PDF without uploading
Most online PDF tools that let you remove pages require you to upload the document to their server first. Your PDF — which may contain contracts, medical records, financial statements, or other private content — travels over the internet to a third-party machine, gets processed there, and comes back as a download.
keptlocal removes pages entirely in your browser. The file is read into local memory using pdf-lib, the specified pages are removed from the document structure, and the result is written back as a new PDF that downloads directly to your device. At no point does a byte of your document leave your machine.
You can verify this yourself: open DevTools (F12), switch to the Network tab, and watch while you remove pages. You will see no POST requests, no file uploads, and no outbound transfers of any kind.
How it works under the hood
pdf-lib loads your PDF into memory and represents each page as an object in the document's page tree.
When you specify pages to remove, the tool converts your input into a sorted list of zero-based indices
and calls doc.removePage(index) for each one, working backwards from the last page so that
earlier indices remain valid as pages are removed.
The remaining pages are saved into a new PDF byte stream and downloaded directly — your original file on disk is never modified. All content on the kept pages (text, images, annotations, embedded fonts) is preserved exactly as it was in the source document.
Limits and what to expect
- Minimum output: at least one page must remain. The tool will stop you from removing all pages.
- Page numbering: pages are numbered from 1, based on their physical position in the file — not any printed page numbers. A document that prints "Page 5" on its first physical page is still page 1 in this tool.
- Password-protected PDFs: the tool attempts to load encrypted PDFs with
ignoreEncryption. PDFs requiring a password to view content will fail — use the Unlock PDF tool first. - Internal links: some PDFs contain a table of contents or cross-references that point to specific page numbers. Removing the target page does not update those links — they will become broken in the output.
- Browser support: Chrome 90+, Firefox 90+, Safari 15+, Edge 90+.
Remove pages from PDF vs. other approaches
Adobe Acrobat can remove pages but requires a paid subscription ($23/month). The organise pages panel gives a thumbnail view, which is useful for large documents, but it is overkill for simply removing one or two known page numbers.
Mac Preview lets you delete pages from a PDF for free via the thumbnail sidebar — right-click a thumbnail and choose Delete. This is fine for Mac users but unavailable on Windows.
Other free online tools (iLovePDF, Smallpdf) process files server-side and impose daily task limits on free accounts. keptlocal removes pages in the browser with no upload, no account, and no limits.