Error: 'One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted'. Cannot resolve.

[AhldenKlotz]

When I try to delete pages in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC I recieve an error message 'One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted'.

No other pages or files are open. I have deleted and resinstalled adobe. I have changed every setting that other discussions have talked about. Nothing fixes this. I need to be able to delete multiple pages and often, its a vital part of my job. 

My boss moved me to a completely new computer and the problem is still there. It is only for my adobe. All we can think of is its my adobe account/login that has the glitch.

If we cannot resolve this my boss is going to move us to another PDF application. (We have 30 employees)

[yash singh]

Is his happening on a sigle file or all files ?

If its a single file can you try to remove the layers by recreating the file ? 
you can use the Following article on How to remove layers from Acrobat 

[AhldenKlotz]

All files. We even set the team member up on a completley new computer and she has the same issue

[creative explorer]

@AhldenKlotz chances are that file is opened on someone's computer? And you need to locate that file and close it. I am hoping you have gone around, and close everybody's open applciations as well any web broswer to close it.  If that didn't work, the next step is to turn off the enhance protection.

In Acrobat, go to Preferences: Keyboard shortcuts: Command K for the Mac, Control K for the PC
Security (Enhanced) and uncheck the 'Enable Enhanced Security' or 'Enable protected mode at startup' option. Restart Acrobat and try deleting the pages.

[FieldOne]

Even when spending over $200 per year for the individual license having to sort out such things is truely a complete waste of time as the issue regardless of;

"In Acrobat, go to Preferences: Keyboard shortcuts: Command K for the Mac, Control K for the PC
Security (Enhanced) and uncheck the 'Enable Enhanced Security' or 'Enable protected mode at startup' option. Restart Acrobat and try deleting the pages."

Continues repeatedly so I am uncertain what theoretical genius coder at adobe came up with this idea of refusing to edit documents but when working on such things like thesis or dissertations this tends to tighten the jaw. Therefore dearest adobe FIX YOUR SOFTWARE.

[Emmanuel2596924481ck]

Having this same issue. I'm on a time crunch and your software is killing me. I've explored several other threads and this glitch has existed for more than 10 years. I'm going to make a reccomendation to my team that we no longer pay for this platform since it's clearly broken. 

[pamela_7359]

This is one issue that I am constantly having to deal with.  😞

[pamela_7359]

The long process I have been doing is 

1. Go to Organize pages.
2. Move all the pages to the top that I do not need (that won't let me delete)
3. Print to: Microsoft Print to PDF only the range of pages I want to keep
4.  Save 😉

[LTCjury · Accepted solution]

This drove (and still does) me crazy. Here is how I fix it:

Go to Edit/Preferences/Accessibility and uncheck "Enable assistive technology support" 

It seems that if I have images or documents within my PDF, it wants to scan them which messes up the ability to delete pages. 

[josephm74923106]

This worked for me, but I had to restart Acrobat as well.

[MarioDavid]

wonderful   it worked 

[charlesl9557]

Thank you but sadly didn't work for me. Had to use another (free) application pdfgear which did it fine

[David343331190ege]

What a worthless program!

[charlesl9557]

For context this is happening to me when editing a file I only just created by combining several PDF single pages into a binder, a couple were duplicated, but Adobe won't let me delete the duplicated page. Other threads suggest this is ongoing min 14 years. 

Not only is it a bug, the error message doesn't tell you what the problem is so you can fix it. Error messages should always tell you what's going on.

[AnandSri]

Hello @charlesl9557

I hope you are doing well.

The message “One or more pages are in use and could not be deleted” usually appears when:

• The page is referenced by another feature (like bookmarks, links, or form fields).
• The PDF binder is still open in another process (e.g., thumbnail preview, background indexing).
• Acrobat locks the page because of internal structure dependencies created during the combine process.

Try these steps in order:

Close All Other Views
Make sure the file isn’t open in multiple windows or tabs. Close any secondary views like Compare or Organize Pages.

Remove Bookmarks or Links
Go to Menu > View > Show/Hide > Side panels> Bookmarks and delete any bookmarks pointing to the page. Also, check for hyperlinks in the document.

Save as a New PDF
Use Menu > Save As > PDF to create a fresh copy. 

Print to PDF (Flatten)
If the above fails, print the document to Adobe PDF (or use Save as Optimized PDF) to flatten interactive elements. Then try deleting the page.

Use the Organize Pages Tool
Open All Tools > Organize Pages, select the duplicate page, and delete it from there.

Please ensure you have the latest version of Acrobat installed on the machine: 25.001.20997. Planned update: December 9, 2025. Check for any pending updates by navigating to Menu > Help> Check for Updates. Install the updates, restart the app and the machine, and try again.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.