Repair a Damaged PDF
Fix PDFs that won't open or show errors after a broken download, a failed email attachment or a crashed program. Recovers as many pages as can still be read.
Choose the damaged PDF
Repair
Upload a PDF and the repair starts straight away.
Recovered pages
The recovered pages will appear here.
Fixed in your browser
The damaged file is repaired on your device and never sent to us.
Most pages recovered
Tries three methods and keeps the one that saves the most pages.
Honest results
Shows pages recovered and the method used; an empty file is never offered.
How the repair works
A PDF has an index (the cross-reference table) that tells readers where every page and image is stored. When a download stops early or a program crashes while saving, that index is often wrong or missing, and readers refuse to open the file even though most of the content is still there.
The repair first cleans the file, removing junk before the PDF header or after its end marker, and rebuilds the index by scanning the whole file. If some pages are still broken, it copies every page that can be read into a fresh PDF. As a last resort it renders each readable page as an image, which recovers how the pages look even when their structure is badly damaged.
Before you download, you see which method worked, how many pages were recovered out of how many were expected, and what was fixed. Content that is truly missing from the file, such as the end of a cut-off download, can't be brought back.
How to use it
- 1Upload the damaged PDF.
- 2Wait while it is checked and repaired.
- 3See how many pages were recovered.
- 4Download the repaired PDF.
Signs a PDF needs repair
- The reader says the file is damaged, corrupted or "could not be opened".
- Some pages are blank or the file stops part-way through.
- The PDF came from an interrupted download or email attachment.
- The program that created it crashed or ran out of space while saving.
- The file opens in one program but shows errors or missing pages in another.
The three repair methods
Rebuild: the file is re-saved with a new index. This keeps everything as it was, including selectable text, and fixes the most common kind of damage.
Recover pages: every page that loads is copied into a new PDF, leaving broken ones out. Page images: when the structure is too damaged, each page that can still be displayed is saved as an image. The tool keeps whichever result recovers the most pages, prefers the gentler method when they tie, and tells you which one it used.
Tips if the repair falls short
- Download or copy the file again from its source; a complete copy fixes more than any repair can.
- Ask the sender to export the PDF again from the original program.
- If pages came out as images, run the result through OCR PDF to make the text searchable.
- Password-protected files must be unlocked with Unlock PDF before repairing.
Related tools
What Our Users Say
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is my file uploaded to a server?
No. The tool runs entirely in your browser tab using JavaScript. Your files never leave your device, and closing the tab discards them.
Can every PDF be repaired?
No. If the damaged part contains the page content itself, that content is gone. The tool recovers every page it can still read and tells you how many that is.
Can it open password-protected PDFs?
Password-protected PDFs can't be repaired directly. If you know the password, use Unlock PDF first, then repair the unlocked copy.
Will the repaired PDF keep its text?
Yes when the file can be rebuilt or its pages copied, which covers most damaged files. Only the last-resort method saves pages as images; the result screen tells you if that happened.
My file isn't a PDF at all. Can it be fixed?
No. The tool needs a file that is, or was, a PDF. If no pages can be recovered at all, the file is probably a different format that was given a .pdf name, or it was saved empty.
Is there a size limit?
Files up to 300 MB can be repaired, free and without sign-up.
Does repairing change the parts of the PDF that were fine?
When the first method works, the file is only re-saved with a fresh index, so pages, text and images stay as they were. Copying pages into a new file can drop a few document-level extras such as bookmarks, and the image fallback keeps how pages look but not their text.