Password-protect PDFs

Last updated on Jun 9, 2026

Learn how to set a password to limit access to files in Acrobat on mobile.

With an Acrobat subscription, you can set a password to protect PDFs. This restricts unauthorized access and can prevent printing. Setting a password creates a protected copy of the file, saved as <filename>_protected.pdf in Adobe cloud storage. The original file remains unchanged.

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Note

Certain features are not available for password-protected files, including commenting, highlighting, exporting, combining, compressing, cropping pages, and using Create PDF tools.