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Privacy and security

The short version: for the tools marked Private, your file is never sent anywhere. For the few marked Secure cloud, it is sent over HTTPS, processed in memory, and never stored. Here is what both mean precisely.

How local processing works

When you choose a file, the browser reads it into memory in this tab. The work happens in a Web Worker — a background thread on your own machine — and the result is handed back as a download. At no point is the file written to a network request.

You do not have to take our word for it. Load a tool page, disconnect from the network, and use it. If it still works, nothing was uploaded. You can also watch the Network tab in your browser's developer tools while you run a job.

What this protects, and what it does not

It does protect against

  • Your document sitting on someone else's server
  • Retention policies you have to trust
  • A breach on our side exposing your files
  • Staff access to what you processed

It does not protect against

  • Malware already running on your device
  • A compromised or malicious browser extension
  • Anyone with physical access to your machine
  • What you do with the file after downloading it

Which tools run locally

16 of the tools listed on this site process entirely on your device:

  • Merge PDF
  • Split PDF
  • Remove Pages
  • Extract Pages
  • Organize PDF
  • Rotate PDF
  • JPG to PDF
  • PDF to JPG
  • PDF to Text
  • Watermark PDF
  • Add Page Numbers
  • Flatten PDF
  • Edit Metadata
  • Sign PDF
  • Clean Metadata
  • Redact PDF

How the cloud tools work

Compress PDF, Protect PDF, Unlock PDF, PDF to Word, Word to PDF, Excel to PDF, PowerPoint to PDF, PDF to Excel, HTML to PDF, OCR PDF, eSign PDF, Repair PDF need work a browser tab cannot do, so they run in a handler on our server. The file travels over HTTPS as the body of one request, is handed to the processing engine as bytes in memory, and the result is written straight into the response. There is no upload bucket, no queue, and no temporary file; the handler logs the error class if something fails and never the file's name, contents, a password you typed, or a certificate you supplied. When the response has been sent, nothing of the file remains.

What that does not give you is the ability to verify it yourself the way you can with a local tool. You are trusting this description, our hosting provider, and HTTPS. If that trust is not available to you for a particular document, the local tools are the ones to use, and every one of them stays free.

The remaining tools on the site are switched off because they would need software we have not deployed. Their pages say so rather than approximate the job.

What we collect

No analytics. An account, if you create one, is an email address and a password hash; a Pro subscription adds the state our payment provider reports. Signing in sets one cookie holding a session token. Document content reaches us only through the cloud tools, as described above.

One more thing gets recorded, and it would be dishonest to leave it out: serving a page means the hosting provider writes an ordinary request log — your IP address, the time, the URL, and your browser's user-agent string. That is how the site is kept running and how abuse is spotted. Those entries are kept for a short period, and they say nothing about what you processed. The privacy policy sets this out in full.

Common questions

Are my PDF files uploaded to a server?
Not for any tool marked Private: the file is read into memory in your browser tab and processed by a Web Worker on your own machine, and no network request carries it. The cloud tools, marked Secure cloud and part of Pro, do upload the file over HTTPS; it is processed in memory and streamed back, never written to disk and never kept.
How can I verify that nothing is uploaded?
Load a tool page, disconnect from the internet, and use it. If it still produces a file, nothing was sent. You can also open your browser's developer tools and watch the Network tab while you run a job.
Do I need an account to use these PDF tools?
Not for the tools that run in your browser: no sign-up, no login, no email, and no watermark on the output. An account and a Pro subscription are needed only for the cloud tools, because those run on hardware we pay for.
Does ilovspdfs use analytics or cookies?
No analytics. One cookie, set only when you sign in, holds your session. Document content reaches us only through the cloud tools, and only for the moment of processing.
What does local processing not protect against?
It does not protect against malware already running on your device, a malicious browser extension that can read the page, anyone with physical access to your machine, or what happens to the file after you download it.

Reporting a problem

If you find a security issue in ilovspdfs, please report it before disclosing it publicly, and give us a reasonable window to fix it.