SNB DEV
Most people need to merge PDFs a few times a year. A scanned ID and a signed form for a bank. Three invoices for an accountant. A CV and a cover letter that a job portal wants as a single upload. It should take a minute, and it usually takes ten, because the first five sites you try want an account, an email address, or a paid plan before they hand back your own file.
We built a free PDF merger that does not do any of that. This is how to use it, and what happens to your files while you do.
Merge your PDFs in four steps
- Open the tool. Go to the Tools page. The PDF Merger is the first card.
- Add your files. Drag the PDFs onto the box, or click it and pick them. You can add up to 10 files, up to 20MB in total.
- Check the order. The pages are joined in the order the files appear in the list, top to bottom. If one is in the wrong place, click remove next to it and add it again so it goes to the end.
- Press Merge PDFs. A progress bar shows the upload. When it finishes, your browser downloads
merged.pdf.
That is the whole process. There is no watermark on the result, no page limit beyond the size cap, and no email address to give.
Getting the order right
The order of the list is the order of the pages in the final file, so it is worth a second look before you press the button. The easiest habit is to add the files one at a time in the order you want them. If you are combining a lot of documents, rename them first with a number at the front (1-application.pdf, 2-id-copy.pdf and so on) so you can pick them in sequence without thinking about it.
What happens to your files
Merging PDFs properly means rebuilding the file's internal structure, and doing that inside a browser would mean making every visitor download a very large library. So this tool sends your files to our server, merges them there, and sends the result straight back to your browser.
Your files travel over an encrypted connection, the merge happens in one go, and nothing is kept afterwards. There is no account, so there is nothing to tie the files to you either. We think it is better to say plainly that the files leave your device for a moment than to pretend otherwise.
If a document is truly confidential, such as medical records or anything under a non-disclosure agreement, use a merger that runs entirely on your own computer instead. On a Mac, Preview can combine PDFs. On Windows, a desktop PDF editor will do it offline.
If something goes wrong
- "Couldn't reach the server." The merger runs on a free server that goes to sleep when nobody is using it. The first request after a quiet spell can take around 30 seconds to wake it. Wait a moment and press the button again.
- "Total size over 20MB." Scanned documents are often much larger than they need to be. Scan at a lower resolution, or save the scan as a smaller PDF before merging.
- A file is rejected. Only real PDF files are accepted. A photo of a document is not a PDF; save or export it as a PDF first.
- The merge fails on one particular file. Password-protected or damaged PDFs can fail. Open the file, save a fresh copy without the password, and try again.
Why it is free
We build software for a living, and small tools like this are a way of showing how we work: simple, honest about what they do, and finished. There is a longer note on that in why our free tools don't ask for your email. If you need a tool built for your own business, tell us what you need.