unlockR – Stupid Simple App to Remove PDF Password in Linux & Windows

Last updated: July 24, 2022 — Leave a comment

For those want to unlock / decrypt PDF files, there’s now a stupid simple graphical tool to do the job in Linux.

It’s easy to encrypt you PDF files in Ubuntu Linux since the built-in LibreOffice office suite has the option on ‘Export as PDF’ dialog. However, there seems no easy way to remove password for PDF file, other than using qpdf command:

qpdf --decrypt --password=<PASSWORD> input.pdf output.pdf

unlockR is a new GTK4 application that use Libadwaita to provide a modern simple user interface to decrypt your PDF files.

It’s so simple that you just need to click ‘Open a File‘ to select your PDF, then type the password, and finally hit ‘Decrypt’. It doesn’t change the original file, but generates a new PDF without password protect.

As the picture shows, it has both light and dark mode that switches automatically according your system color scheme.

NOTE: This app is NOT about to crack password on a PDF file. You need the password to be able to decrypt it.

How to Install unlockR

It is a free open-software software works on both Linux and Windows. For Windows package, just grab the zip from github releases page:

For Linux, it offers the binary package via universal Flatpak. Ubuntu user need to first press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, and run command to install the Flatpak daemon:

sudo apt install flatpak

Next, install the app package via command:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.github.jkotra.unlockr.flatpakref

Like normal applications, search for and open it from ‘Activities’ overview (or start menu) after installation.

Uninstall:

To remove the Flatpak package, open terminal and run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data com.github.jkotra.unlockr

You may also clear useless runtime libraries via flatpak uninstall --unused.

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I'm a freelance blogger who started using Ubuntu in 2007 and wishes to share my experiences and some useful tips with Ubuntu beginners and lovers. Please comment to let me know if the tutorial is outdated! And, notify me if you find any typo/grammar/language mistakes. English is not my native language. Contact me via [email protected] Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/ubuntuhandbook1 |

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