Best Private PDF Tools (No Upload) in 2026: the buyer's shortlist

ToAny runs its PDF tools inside your browser tab. You drop a PDF, the work happens on your device, and the result is saved from browser memory. No PDF tool uses ToAny's conversion server, and compress never does either. The privacy page says a browser conversion never sends the file's contents, name or size anywhere, and you can check that in your browser's Network panel.

The PDF tools hub lists 10 tools: merge, split, delete pages, rotate, unlock, protect, reorder pages, add page numbers, add a watermark and flatten. Compress PDF sits beside them. Passwords typed for protect and unlock stay in browser memory and are never stored, logged or sent. The tools are free, with no account and no email. At the time of writing no ads are shown, although the terms reserve the right to show them later.

Be clear about the limits. ToAny is not an offline tool: it has no service worker and fetches each codec the first time you use it, so it needs the network. A run is capped at 300 MB of input on desktop and 100 MB on touch devices, and merge takes up to 100 files. ToAny does not change the text inside a PDF, and it has no OCR, no signing, no API and no app. The code is private, not open source. 16 non-PDF pairs, such as legacy Word and PowerPoint files, run on ToAny's own server, but only after you consent for each upload.

PDFsam Basic is a desktop application for Windows, macOS and Linux. The vendor says there is no browser version. Its privacy policy states that all its applications process PDF files locally, that no content is automatically sent or uploaded from the desktop apps, and that nothing is sent or collected by PDFsam Basic.

The pricing is the simplest in this list. The FAQ says PDFsam Basic is completely free, with no watermarks and no file size limit, and that it can be used in a company for free. There is no sign-up. The code is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence, and the GitHub repository showed 4,626 stars on 2026-10-17. The software has been developed since 2006 and is powered by the open-source Sejda SDK.

The trade-off is range. The tools the FAQ lists are merge, rotate, split by page numbers, by size and by bookmarks level, mix, and extract pages. That is five jobs, with no compress, no protect and no unlock in that list. You also have to install it. PDFsam Basic needs about 70 MB of disk space, 256 MB of RAM and a 64-bit operating system, and since version 4 it does not run on 32-bit systems.

Because it is a local app, it should work with the network cut once installed, although the pages we read do not say so in words. A browser tool such as ToAny cannot offer that. The PDFsam website itself carries a Google AdSense script in its page source, which concerns the site rather than the app. For plain merge and split work on your own computer, it is the cleanest option here.

Stirling-PDF has the longest tool list here. The pricing page says the free plan includes 60+ PDF tools and 1,000 monthly credits to automate PDF work, and that it runs on the web, on the desktop and self-hosted. Its homepage says the editor runs on your machine and the source is public, so you can verify that instead of trusting it.

The free plan costs $0 a month with no card required. The Team plan is $99 a month with 100 users included, and the PDF Processor costs 1 cent per credit, prepaid or as you use them. Enterprise is by contacting sales. Every operation can be called through APIs and MCP, which ToAny cannot do because it has no API.

The homepage shows a 31M downloads badge, and the GitHub repository had 94,352 stars on 2026-10-17. It also claims use by 75% of the Fortune 500, which is a self-reported figure we cannot check. The repository was created on 2023-01-27, and the company's founding year is not stated on the pages we read.

Two cautions. First, GitHub reports the licence as NOASSERTION rather than a plain open-source licence, even though the site markets the product as open source. Read the licence file before you build on it. Second, the pages we read do not say whether the web edition works with the network cut or whether any edition sends data of its own. If privacy is the reason you are here, use the desktop or self-hosted edition and check its behaviour yourself.

PDF24 has two faces. PDF24 Creator is an installed app. Its page says it can be used completely free of charge and without any restrictions, and that files remain locally on your PC and are not uploaded to the Internet. The same page says it can only be installed on Windows. The web tools are different: they upload your file to servers that the vendor says are all in the EU.

For the web tools, the privacy policy says uploads are usually deleted one hour after uploading or creating the results. The help centre says it keeps the files for 1 hour on the server and then deletes everything related to the request. That is a deletion promise rather than a no-upload promise, so it belongs in a different category from the Creator app.

The tools page lists protect, unlock, compress, merge, split, sign, edit, OCR, redact and compare, and describes the tools as available online and offline. We found no paid plan on the pages we read. The company says it was founded in 2006, is based in Berlin as geek software GmbH, and is used by millions of people. Those are the vendor's own words and we could not check the user figure.

There are drawbacks. The Creator page shows advertisement labels, and the vendor does not say whether the installed app shows ads. Mac and Linux users cannot install Creator, because the page says Windows only. The pages we read state no code licence. If you are on Windows and want a long list of tools without paying, PDF24 Creator is a strong choice, as long as you keep to the app and avoid the web tools for sensitive files.

Sejda sells the same tools in two forms. Sejda Desktop works offline on Mac, Windows and Linux, and the vendor says files are processed on your computer and not uploaded to its servers. Sejda Web is the browser-based service, where files are uploaded and processed on Sejda's servers. The vendor's privacy page says uploaded and output files are permanently deleted after upload or processing.

Pricing is shown in Australian dollars for the location we fetched from. Desktop plus Web annual is A$99 per user per year, a recurring subscription. Web-only monthly is A$12.50 per user per month and gives no access to Sejda Desktop. A Desktop Week Pass is A$12.95 for 7 days, a one-time payment. The vendor says it no longer offers perpetual licences.

The free desktop tier allows 3 tasks per day. It handles documents up to 50 MB and 200 pages, compress up to 100 MB and OCR up to 10 pages. The About page claims 30+ PDF tools, and the language picker lists 29 languages. Sejda was started in 2010 as an open-source project and is based in Amsterdam. Its homepage claims 4.5 from 1,874 Google reviews, which is the vendor's own figure and which we did not verify on Google.

On data, the privacy page says the downloadable products contact Sejda's servers for licensing and update checks. That sends the product name and version, the hostname, the logged-in username and the IP address. Automatic error reports can include file names, and they can be switched off in settings. So the desktop app keeps the file local but is not silent. It is worth a look if you need OCR in a local app and can live with the daily cap and the 10-page OCR limit.

PDFgear is the one entry where the answer depends on the tool you open. The online Unlock PDF page says your files remain private and are processed locally in your browser, and that no file data is uploaded or transferred over the internet. The online Compress PDF page says files are processed by Amazon Cloud Servers in the US and deleted 20 minutes after leaving the site.

The vendor presents the product as completely free and without signing up. The Unlock tool has no limit on size, number or page count, no watermark and no account. It also says charging for advanced features is still under consideration, with no timeline set, and the About page lists some features shifting to paid options as a plan. So free today does not mean free forever.

The apps cover Windows, Mac, iPhone and iPad, and Android and Chrome extension store listings exist. The online tools hub advertises 30+ tools. The vendor says it does not display ads. Its homepage shows 4.9 from 10,000+ reviews without naming the source, and the Google Play listing shows 4.7 stars from 48.7K reviews. The first version was released in 2022, and the company is PDF GEAR TECH PTE. LTD. in Singapore.

The vendor also says certain advanced conversions may be processed on its Amazon cloud servers, with files deleted straight after. That is why this entry ranks last for privacy. Use the browser Unlock tool for sensitive files, and check the app's own behaviour before relying on it. Treat other online features as uploads unless the tool page says otherwise.