Delete pages from a PDF, blank ones included

The quick answer

1. Open Organize PDF and choose your PDF. Every page appears as a card.
2. Press the bin button on each page you don't want. On a computer, the buttons appear when you point at a card; on a phone they are always shown.
3. Check the count on the yellow button, which says Save PDF with 18 pages, or however many are left.
4. Press it, then Download. You get a new file named after the old one with -organized added, like statement-organized.pdf.

Deleted the wrong page? Press Undo, or Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on a Mac), and it comes back in its place. Your original file is never changed, and nothing is uploaded: the new PDF is made inside your browser.

Deleting one page, or many in a row

One page is one press of its bin button. For many pages, a few tricks save time:

• A run of pages from the keyboard. Press Tab until the bin button of the first page you want gone is selected, and press Enter. The selection jumps to the next card's bin button, so pressing Enter again deletes the next page too. To remove pages 5 to 12, select page 5's bin and press Enter eight times.
• Pages spread across the file. Click each bin in turn. The cards close up behind each deleted page, and the numbers on the handles show the new places.
• Most of the pages. If you are deleting far more than you keep, Split PDF is quicker: you type the few pages you want. See Organize or Split below.

Undo works for every delete, one step at a time, up to 200 steps. And the label under each card, like "Page 7", always shows the page's number in the original file, so you can tell which pages are left even after deleting many.

Deleting and tidying often go together. While you are there, you can drag pages into a new order, copy a page or turn a sideways one; our post on rearranging PDF pages covers that side.

Finding and removing blank pages

Organize PDF doesn't detect blank pages by itself: you spot them on the cards, which is usually easy because an empty page shows as a plain, nearly white card. Blank pages tend to come from a few places:

• Two-sided scanning of one-sided papers. Every real page is followed by an empty back, so the blanks are pages 2, 4, 6 and so on.
• Separator sheets put between documents in a scanner's feeder.
• "This page is intentionally left blank" pages in printed reports and question papers. They carry a line of text, so they aren't truly empty, but you may not want them.

Look twice before you delete a "blank" scanned page. The cards are small, and a back page that looks empty may hold a faint stamp, a signature, a date or a note in pencil. On affidavits, agreements and attested copies, the back is often exactly where that stamp goes. If in doubt, open the original in our PDF Viewer, zoom in on that page, and only then delete it. Scans of empty paper can also show grey specks or text showing through from the other side; those pages are still safe to delete if nothing is written on them.

Removing pages makes a scan smaller, because every scanned page, even a blank one, is a picture of the whole sheet. In our tests, swapping two pages and deleting the last 10 of a 42-page colour scan took it from 47.8 MB to 36.4 MB, about a quarter less.

For a long two-sided scan where every even page is blank, Split PDF can be quicker than pressing 20 bins: type the odd pages you want to keep. For a 20-page scan, that is 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 (spaces or commas both work).

Next time, scan one-sided papers in one-sided mode. Some scanner apps also have an option to skip blank pages; if yours does, check the result anyway, since a nearly empty page with only a stamp can be skipped too.

Organize PDF or Split PDF: which is quicker

Both can remove pages. Organize PDF deletes the pages you click; Split PDF keeps the pages you pick or type. Choose by what is shorter to say:

Under the hood, the two tools work the same way: each page you keep is copied as it is, and the same rules decide what happens to bookmarks, links and form fields. So the choice is only about speed and convenience. Split PDF keeps pages in their original order and works on one PDF at a time; to reorder as well, use Organize PDF.

The names differ too. Organize gives report-organized.pdf. Split names the file after the pages kept, like report-pages-1-3_5-8_10-20.pdf. Rename either before you upload if the portal wants a certain name.

What deleting a page removes from the file

Organize PDF doesn't cut pages out of your old file. It builds a new PDF from the pages you keep, copying only what those pages and the document need. Here is what that means for a deleted page:

• The page itself is not in the new PDF.
• Links and bookmarks that pointed at it are removed, so nothing in the new file leads to a page that isn't there. A removed bookmark's own sub-bookmarks move up to take its place.
• Its pictures and fonts are left out, unless a page you kept uses them too.
• Form fields that sat only on that page are removed with it.
• Hidden tags for screen readers and custom page numbers (like i, ii, iii) are dropped once any page is deleted, so your reader shows plain page numbers.

The size you save depends on the page. Scanned pages are big pictures, so deleting them saves a lot, as the 42-page scan above showed. Text pages usually share their fonts with the rest of the document, so deleting one saves little: our 14-page research paper of 992 KB came out at 924 KB with two pages swapped and its last page deleted, while saving it with no changes at all gives 927 KB. To make a text PDF much smaller, use our PDF compressor instead.

Two more effects: a digitally signed PDF no longer carries a valid signature once a page is deleted, and a PDF with editing restrictions comes out without them. The result row tells you when either applies.

What deleting doesn't remove, and what we can't promise

People often delete a page for privacy: a page with an account number, a medical detail or someone else's name. Deleting is the right first step, but be clear about its limits:

• Your original still has every page. The new PDF is a separate file. Anyone with the original, in your Downloads folder, an old email or a shared drive, still has the deleted page.
• The document's details come along. The title, author and other details, and any files attached to the PDF, are carried over from the original. If they mention what was on the deleted page, they still do.
• Form data stays with its fields. A field with a box on a page you kept keeps its answer, whatever that answer says. Form fields that have no box on any page at all are kept too.
• Deleting is not blacking out. It removes whole pages only. Anything on a page you keep stays there, and our tools can't black out or edit text on a page.

We also can't promise that no trace of a deleted page's content is left anywhere in the new file. The list above is what the tool is built to do, but PDFs can carry information in many places, and we haven't tested every kind of file. If a page held something truly sensitive, open the new file's document properties in your PDF reader to check its title and details, look for attachments, and share the new file rather than the original.

Deleting pages on Android or iPhone

No app needed. Open Organize PDF in Chrome on Android or Safari on iPhone. We tested in Chromium, the browser Chrome is built on, at phone screen sizes; Safari on a real iPhone wasn't part of our tests, but the tool uses standard browser features and should work the same.

1. Save the PDF to your phone first if it came by email or in a chat, so it sits in Downloads (Android) or the Files app (iPhone).
2. Tap Choose PDF files and pick it.
3. Tap the bin on each page you don't want. On a touch screen, the turn, copy and delete buttons are always shown on every card.
4. Tap the yellow Save button, which stays in view at the bottom of the screen, then Download. On Android the file goes to Downloads; on iPhone it usually goes to Downloads in the Files app.

On a small phone the cards sit two to a row, so the pictures are small. Most phone browsers let you pinch to zoom in on the cards when you need a closer look at a page that might be blank. Scrolling with a finger works anywhere on a card except its numbered handle, which is for dragging.

Big scans need memory. We set no size limit, but the file and the new PDF are held in your device's memory while it is saved, and phones have less than computers. If the page says the file is too big for the browser's memory, close other apps and tabs, or use a computer.

Before you delete: a quick check

• Is the page really unwanted? If a portal or an office asks for a complete document, such as a full bank statement or a whole agreement, send it complete. Missing pages can get an application sent back.
• Is it really blank? Zoom in on scanned backs for stamps and signatures first.
• Is it a duplicate? Compare the two pages' pictures, not only their labels; two certificates can look alike at card size.
• Do links or bookmarks lead to it? They go with the page, so check you won't miss them.

After saving, open the new -organized file, not the original, and scroll through every page. The side panel of our PDF Viewer shows a small picture of every page, which makes a quick final check easy. If the file is too big for a portal, shrink it last with Resize PDF.

When something goes wrong

• I deleted the wrong page. Press Undo. If you have already closed the tool, your original is unchanged: add it again and redo the job.
• I need one page back in a file I already made. Add the new file and the original together, delete every page of the original except the one you need, and drag it into place.
• The new file still shows the page. You probably opened the original. The new one ends in -organized.
• I can't see the bin button. On a computer, point at the card or press Tab to reach it. On a phone it is always shown.
• A bookmark or form field is missing. It pointed at, or sat on, a page you deleted, so it was removed with it.
• "Locked with a password." A PDF that needs a password to open must be unlocked first. Remove its card with the X, then add the unlocked copy.

More answers are in the guide's problems and quick fixes.

Other ways to delete PDF pages

• Preview on a Mac can delete pages from its sidebar and save. A good choice if you are on a Mac.
• Adobe Acrobat has full page tools, including deleting pages. Fine if you already have it.
• Printing only the pages you want to a new PDF, for example with Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows, works in a pinch. But it makes a fresh copy from a printout, and links, bookmarks and fillable fields often don't survive.
• Online tools that upload your file work too, but your document goes to their server first. Free plans often cap the file size or the number of tasks.

Organize PDF copies the pages you keep exactly as they are, keeps the links and bookmarks that still lead somewhere, and never uploads anything. Our privacy page explains how.