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Remove the restrictions from a PDF

Clear all the permission restrictions from a PDF, restoring copying, printing, and editing. Supply the owner password that currently protects the flags.

Remove all permission restrictions from a PDF document, restoring the ability to copy, print, and edit. The API is stateless: your document is processed in-region and never stored.

This clears the permission flags (the copy, print, and edit restrictions), not the password required to open the file. To remove that, use Remove the password. For the full lifecycle, see Protecting documents.

Endpoint

POST
/v1/remove_restrictions

Available in every region. See Regions & data residency for routing and data residency.

Region URL
Global https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
United States https://us.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
US HIPAA https://hipaa.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
European Union https://eu.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
United Kingdom https://uk.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
Canada https://ca.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
Australia https://au.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
Japan https://jp.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
India https://in.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions
Brazil https://br.api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions

Authentication

Authenticate every request with your secret API key in the X-API-Key header, over HTTPS. Create and manage keys from the dashboard. See Authentication for details.

Request

The endpoint accepts a multipart/form-data request body.

filefilerequired

The input PDF document.

Examples

Remove every permission restriction from a PDF:

cURLbash
curl https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions \
  -H 'X-API-Key: your_api_key' \
  -F file=@input.pdf \
  -o unrestricted.pdf
Pythonpython
# pip install requests
import requests

with open('input.pdf', 'rb') as file:
    response = requests.post(
        'https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions',
        headers={'X-API-Key': 'your_api_key'},
        files={'file': file},
    )

response.raise_for_status()
with open('unrestricted.pdf', 'wb') as output:
    output.write(response.content)
Node.jsjavascript
// Node.js 18+
import { readFile, writeFile } from 'node:fs/promises';

const body = new FormData();
body.set('file', new Blob([await readFile('input.pdf')]), 'input.pdf');

const response = await fetch('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'X-API-Key': 'your_api_key' },
  body,
});

if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
await writeFile('unrestricted.pdf', Buffer.from(await response.arrayBuffer()));
PHPphp
<?php
$ch = curl_init('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ['X-API-Key: your_api_key'],
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => [
        'file' => new CURLFile('input.pdf', 'application/pdf'),
    ],
]);

$pdf = curl_exec($ch);
if (curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE) === 200) {
    file_put_contents('unrestricted.pdf', $pdf);
}
Rubyruby
# gem install http
require 'http'

response = HTTP
  .headers('X-API-Key' => 'your_api_key')
  .post('https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions', form: {
    file: HTTP::FormData::File.new('input.pdf'),
  })

File.write('unrestricted.pdf', response.body) if response.status.success?
Gogo
package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"io"
	"mime/multipart"
	"net/http"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	var buf bytes.Buffer
	form := multipart.NewWriter(&buf)

	file, _ := os.Open("input.pdf")
	defer file.Close()
	part, _ := form.CreateFormFile("file", "input.pdf")
	io.Copy(part, file)

	form.Close()

	req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions", &buf)
	req.Header.Set("Content-Type", form.FormDataContentType())
	req.Header.Set("X-API-Key", "your_api_key")

	res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
	defer res.Body.Close()

	out, _ := os.Create("unrestricted.pdf")
	defer out.Close()
	io.Copy(out, res.Body)
}
C#csharp
using var client = new HttpClient();
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("X-API-Key", "your_api_key");

using var form = new MultipartFormDataContent
{
    { new ByteArrayContent(File.ReadAllBytes("input.pdf")), "file", "input.pdf" },
};

var response = await client.PostAsync(
    "https://api.pdfblocks.com/v1/remove_restrictions", form);
response.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
await File.WriteAllBytesAsync(
    "unrestricted.pdf", await response.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync());

Response

On success, the response is 200 OK with the unrestricted PDF as the body:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/pdf
Content-Length: 48213

The output is the same document with its permission flags cleared: its pages and content are unchanged. Stream the body straight to a file, as the examples above do; nothing is stored on our side.

Errors

Failed requests return an application/problem+json body. The most common one for this endpoint is a 400, returned when file isn’t a readable PDF. The errors object names each field:

{
  "type": "https://www.pdfblocks.com/docs/api/v1/error/400",
  "title": "One or more validation errors occurred.",
  "status": 400,
  "errors": {
    "file": ["Could not parse the PDF document. The file may be invalid or corrupt."]
  }
}

A missing or invalid X-API-Key returns a 401. See Errors for every status code and the full response shape.

Add restrictions

Re-apply permission flags.

Remove the password

Remove the open password instead.

Add a password

Encrypt the document with a password.

Remove signatures

Strip signatures from a document.