Protected View and Protected Mode overview

Learn how Protected View and Protected Mode in Acrobat help safeguard your files and system from potential threats.

Protected View and Protected Mode are security features in Adobe Acrobat Pro that help protect your system from potentially malicious PDFs.

About Protected View

Protected View provides an additional layer of security when opening PDFs from potentially unsafe locations. When enabled, it opens PDFs in a restricted environment called a sandbox, limiting what the file can do.

It offers the following key security features:

• Opens untrusted PDFs in a read-only environment
• Displays a warning bar when untrusted PDFs are opened in Acrobat
• Prevents execution of potentially harmful actions until the user explicitly trusts the file
• Blocks some actions that modify PDFs, such as:
  • Drag-and-drop into the reading or navigation pane
  • Printing and saving
  • Pan & Zoom, Loupe tool
  • Reading mode or full-screen view
  • PDF creation from untrusted sources
  • JavaScript execution and form filling

Protected View in stand-alone applications

Protected View in the desktop applications includes the following features:

• Behaves similarly to the Protected View in Microsoft Office
• Displays a yellow warning bar when opening untrusted files
• Users can select Enable All Features to trust the document and exit Protected View

Protected View in browsers

In browsers, Protected View provides a simplified experience with the following key features:

• No warning bar is shown
• Provides a streamlined, Reader-like experience
• Supports rights-enabled PDFs, allowing:
  • Signing form fields
  • Adding signature fields
  • Saving form data

To check if a PDF opened in a browser is in Protected View, go to Menu > Document Properties > Advanced tab, and check the Protected Mode: On status.

For more details, visit Adobe’s Security Blog or refer to Acrobat security overview.

About Protected Mode

Protected Mode is a similar sandboxing feature that runs in the background to mitigate security vulnerabilities. Unlike Protected View, it is disabled by default in Acrobat Pro. It is:

• Enabled by default in Acrobat Reader
• Operates silently in the background
• Restricts file access and system interaction of untrusted PDFs

Protected View vs. Protected Mode