Remove pages from a PDF — for free
Delete specific pages, page ranges, or odd/even pages from any PDF in seconds. Your file is processed entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored.
How to remove pages from a PDF online
Trimming a PDF with PDFluna takes under a minute and runs entirely in your browser. There is nothing to install, no account to create, and your file never leaves your device. Here is the full process:
- Upload your PDF. Drag and drop a PDF onto the upload area or click Choose file. Files up to 100 MB are supported.
- Mark pages to remove. Click page thumbnails to mark them for removal, or type page numbers like "1-3, 5, 10-15" in the range input. Use Mark even / Mark odd shortcuts for duplex scans.
- Review the summary. Check the live counter above the grid — "X of N pages will be removed, N−X will remain" — to confirm what gets kept.
- Download the trimmed PDF. Click Download trimmed PDF to save the new file. Your original is never modified and nothing is ever uploaded.
When you need to delete pages from a PDF
Every PDF accumulates pages you do not want to share. Sometimes it is the cover sheet. Sometimes it is a page of internal notes. Sometimes it is every other page of a duplex scan that came out blank because the scanner only saw one side of the paper. Trimming those pages out before you send the file keeps the document focused and the file smaller.
Common scenarios we see every day:
- Stripping blank backs from duplex scans where the scanner produced an empty page every other page
- Removing the cover page, appendix, or internal notes from a report before sending it to a client
- Deleting confidential pages from a contract draft before circulating for review
- Cleaning up merged PDFs that picked up unwanted pages when combined
- Extracting just the relevant section of a long textbook, research paper, or government filing
Once you have trimmed the file you may also want to compress the trimmed PDF to shrink it further for email, or rotate pages that came in sideways from a mobile scan.
How PDFluna removes pages from your PDF
Most online PDF page removers upload your file to a server, rebuild the document, and send back a trimmed copy. That round trip is slow, raises privacy questions, and often degrades quality because the server has to re-encode images on the way back.
PDFluna does none of that. When you drop a file onto the page it is read into memory using the browser's File API. We use Mozilla's PDF.js to render thumbnails for preview and pdf-lib to copy the pages you keep into a new document. The pages you marked for removal are simply never copied into the output file. Text layers, images, form fields, and metadata on the kept pages are preserved byte-for-byte — no re-encoding, no quality loss.
The page numbering in the output file is renumbered starting from 1 based on what you kept. If you need different behaviour — say, split the PDF into separate files instead of removing pages, or merge multiple PDFs into one — we have dedicated tools for those, all using the same zero-upload architecture. You can verify the privacy angle yourself: open DevTools, switch to the Network tab, and remove some pages. You will see zero requests during processing.
Frequently asked questions
Can I recover removed pages later?
Your original PDF is never modified — we create a brand-new trimmed file in your browser and leave the source untouched. If you want the removed pages back, just keep the original and upload it again.
What is the maximum file size?
The tool accepts PDFs up to 100 MB. Because page removal does not re-encode content, large files process quickly — only the thumbnail rendering scales with page count.
Can I remove pages from a password-protected PDF?
Not directly. Encrypted PDFs need to be unlocked first. Use our Unlock PDF tool to remove the password, then trim the unlocked file here.
Will bookmarks still work after removing pages?
Bookmarks (the PDF outline) are currently stripped when pages are removed. This is a limitation of the underlying pdf-lib library we use. Text, images, forms, and metadata on the kept pages are all preserved. If you need bookmarks kept, remove the pages in a desktop PDF editor instead.
Is my file uploaded to your server?
No. Everything happens in your browser using JavaScript. You can verify this yourself by opening DevTools → Network tab while removing pages: no requests are made during processing.
Does this work on mobile?
Yes. The tool is fully responsive and tested on iOS Safari and Android Chrome. On mobile you get a 2-column thumbnail grid with tap-to-mark, plus a sticky summary bar so you can always see how many pages are being removed.
Can I remove just the first page or just the last page?
Yes — click the first or last thumbnail to mark it, or type 1 or the last page number into the range input. For the last page on a 45-page PDF, typing 45 or 45-45 both work.