Password protected files... forgotten passwords

Report · Jan 01, 2014

I use the same password for most everything and if the criteria for creating a password is an extra character, capital letter,number, ect., I adjust my password accordingly. The problem with this is, they never tell you what the criteria is when trying to login days, weeks, months later. If anyone remembers the password criteria to protect a file and can share that with me, I would be able to access my file and be a happy camper.

Report · Jan 02, 2014

What product/service are you using? There is no way within files.acrobat.com to password-protect individual documents, so there is no "password criteria to protect a file."

Report · Jan 13, 2014

Okay, perhaps I am not using the correct terminology, here is the situation... On a Pa State web sight I have a license I need to print in order to do my job. It was in pdf format. In order to print it I had to down load Adobe Reader XI and I saved it to a pdf file that was password protected.At the time I was on the road and did not have a printer. When i got home I went to print it and could not access it because I can't remember the password. I can no longer access the information on the web sight either. As i said I use a variation of the same password depending on the amount of characters and type of characters, such as, password must be 8 characters and include one of the following,@#$%, one number and a capital letter. I can recall the password if I knew that info.and i do not believe there is a way to retrieve forgotten passwords. Now do you understand the question.

Report · Jan 13, 2014

Please help... I need this info ASAP...

Report · Jan 14, 2014

Adobe does not have access to the password that was used to protect the file, and no way to recover or reset it. Nor does Adobe specify the criteria that the provider of a PDF file has to use when password-protecting PDFs.

You will have to contact the Pennsylvania state web site to try to retrieve that license once again.

Report · Mar 10, 2015

I have had the same problem today! I download a file from my email account to adobe.com...AND it passworded my file! I changed the password in adobe.com and it will accept it there but NOT my file..!!! I need this file ASAP!!

When I searched it through adobe.com...it tells me how to password it but not to delete the password protection!

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated!!

Report · Mar 10, 2015

Hi histlady,

I'm assuming that file was password protected before you downloaded the attachment from your email account. Acrobat doesn't automatically apply passwords to PDF files; doing so requires that you open the file in Acrobat and deliberately choose what type of security you want, and then assign your own password.

If you've received a file that requires a password, then somebody has applied a password to that PDF and you'll need to get in touch with that person to get the password.

Best,

Sara

Report · Mar 10, 2015

Thank you! I finally came to that conclusion also!

I have since opened the file! I appreciate your response!

Sent from my iPhone

Report · Mar 10, 2015

Hooray! I know how frustrating it can be when things don't work like you expect!

Sara