Encrypt PDF Files on Mac – Here is the Ultimate Guide You Should Follow
Last Updated on September 21, 2025 by Tina Clark
When you need to send an important file to a group of colleagues, how do you prevent unauthorized others from reading your sensitive document? It is important to protect a PDF with a password on Mac. Preview is the default choice to maintain data confidentiality and integrity. Of course, you can also use Word to encrypt PDF files on Mac. Besides, you can use a professional PDF protector to encrypt PDF files for different purposes.
Part 1: The Best Way to Password Protect PDF on Mac
PDFelement is a professional PDF password locker, including a wide range of custom options. It enables you to set a password for opening PDF files, copying the texts/images, printing documents, making changes, and tweaking different levels. There are different encryption levels, such as 128-bit AES, 256-bit AES, and more. It should be the optimal method to hide the PDF files away from prying eyes.
1. Provide different privileges for printing, tweaking, and permissions.
2. Tweak the encryption levels, including 128-bit AES, 256-bit AES, etc.
3. Hide the sensitive information of PDFs with passwords or watermarks.
4. Password protects a series of PDF documents within a batch process.
Step 1: Download and install PDFelement on your Mac, you can launch the program to encrypt PDFs on Mac, launch the app, and click the Open files button to open the desired PDF. Moreover, you can import multiple PDFs for a batch process.
Step 2: If you just need to encrypt the PDF on Mac, go to the File menu and select the Encrypt with Password option from the Protect option to hide the PDF from others. It provides different encryption methods for opening, copying, and printing PDF files.
Step 3: It provides 3 different PDF security options, you can choose the desired one accordingly. Enter the password to protect the PDFs on Mac for different situations and select the encryption level before clicking the OK button to confirm PDF locking.
Document Open Password: Protect the PDF documents from opening with the password.
Permissions: Protect the PDF files from copying of text, images, and other content with the password.
Printing Allowed: Just like the name of the option, the option protects the PDF from the password.
Step 4: Once you are done with PDF encryption on Mac, click on the OK button to save the password-protected PDF. Navigate to a proper destination folder, set the filename, and confirm it. After that, you will find the encrypted PDFs in the destination folder.
Part 2: How to Password Protect PDF on Mac with Preview
Preview is the default PDF protector for Mac to keep PDF files away from prying eyes. It enables you to set a password to manage the privileges for printing, copying texts, and adding annotations. It should be easy to safeguard any doc with an extra layer of defense.
Step 1: Open the desired PDF in the Preview app on Mac. If it is the default PDF reader, double-click on the PDF. Of course, you can right-click the PDF and open the document with Preview.
Step 2: Go to the File menu and choose the Export option to open the export dialog. Tick the Encrypt checkbox on the popup dialog, enter the password in the Password box and re-enter it in the Verify box.
Step 3: Enter a filename into the Export As field. Set the location folder in the Where box. Make sure to select PDF from the Format option. After that, click the Save button to encrypt the PDF on Mac.
Note: If you do not alter the name of the PDF, it will overwrite the original files. To add a stronger shield to the PDF, you have to look for an alternative to hide the file. Moreover, it cannot apply restrictions when encrypting PDFs.
Part 3: How to Encrypt a PDF on Mac with Office Word
MS Office also offers a password-protection feature. Microsoft introduced a more advanced security algorithm and turned to the Advanced Encryption Standard with a 128-bit key. The different versions of Word have some major difference on encrypting in your MacBook.
Step 1: Launch your MS Word 2016 on Mac, and open the PDF file. Go to the File tab and click the Export menu. Select the Create PDF/XPS Document button and click the Create PDF/XPS option.
Step 2: Set the destination folder for the output and enter a filename in the File name dialog. After that, you can pull down the Save as type option, and choose PDF as the output file format.
Step 3: Click the Options button to open the options dialog. Click the Show All menu and choose the Security button. After that, enter a password for opening the PDF or modifying the files.
Step 4: Click the Publish button on the publish dialog. It is all and the PDF is encrypted on Mac. Now, every time when you open PDF documents, you have to enter the password.
Conclusion
When you need to share a private or important PDF with multiple colleagues, you have to define the different privileges, such as opening, modifying, and printing. Here is the ultimate guide you should know to encrypt a PDF on your Mac. The easiest way to encrypt the PDF files before sending them via email is using Preview. It can protect your documents with password protection. MS Word is another option to password-protect the files and save them in PDF format. If you need to encrypt a PDF with different permissions, PDFelement is the professional choice you should choose.