PDF document recovery options and guides.
FileFix repairs PDFs that won't open, including “the file is damaged and could not be repaired” and “Failed to load PDF document”. Upload the PDF and see a free preview — watermarked pages from the repaired PDF and the recovered page count before you pay; you pay only if it shows what you need.
Repair a corrupted PDF online
Free preview — pay only if you download ($12 USD)
Your files auto-delete — delete them sooner anytime
No person looks at your file as part of repair
Uploading your file.
Keep this tab open while the file transfers. Large files can take longer.
Starting upload...
Recovering what we can.
- Upload received
- Repair in progress
- Result ready
Analyzing your file...
Here's what we recovered.
Review the watermarked preview before checkout.
Repair your file
Choose a supported file to see what can be repaired before checkout.
Simulated checkout — no payment is processed.
Optional — we'll email your private download link.
You preview before you pay. If the download is materially worse than the preview you approved, we'll refund you.
Your files auto-delete — delete them sooner anytime
No person looks at your file as part of repair
We couldn't recover this one.
The file is too damaged to rebuild, so there is nothing to preview and no charge.
What stopped you continuing? One tap tells us why.
Try a deep repair
The repair engine can try a longer pass on the file you already uploaded.
Machine-only processing; no human views files; nothing is sent to an outside AI.
Have another clip from the same device?
A healthy video recorded on the same device — ideally the same settings — gives the repair engine a template to rebuild from. It can unlock repairs that fail on their own.
Unrepaired files are kept encrypted for up to 30 days, then deleted.
FileFix can't fix that kind of file yet.
Right now we repair video, audio, document, and image files (MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI, TS, MTS, M2TS, MPG, MPEG, VOB, 3GP, WebM, FLV, M4A, WAV, MP3, AAC, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, AIFF, XLSX, DOCX, PPTX, ODT, ZIP, RAR, PDF, AI, HEIC, and HEIF). We're adding support for more formats over time.
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Why PDF readers stop loading a file
A PDF contains your pages along with information that tells a reader how to find and display them. If that information is damaged, the reader may refuse to open the file even when some pages are still there.
An interrupted save or download can leave a PDF incomplete. Damage to part of the file can also stop a reader from displaying pages that survived.
FileFix tries several ways to recover the pages that are still readable, then checks that the rebuilt PDF opens. We only offer a result if it contains readable pages.
The free preview shows watermarked pages from the repaired PDF and the recovered page count. The preview is a sample of the rebuilt document; it cannot recreate pages or content missing from your uploaded file.
You never install anything, and you don't create an account to try it. You upload, you inspect the watermarked page preview, you decide.
What we can and can't recover
We can usually fix
- PDFs that show "the file is damaged and could not be repaired"
- PDFs Chrome or Edge won't open ("Failed to load PDF document")
- Files cut off mid-download or mid-save
- PDFs with a broken cross-reference table or trailer
We can't fix
- Password-protected or encrypted PDFs
- Genuinely empty (0-byte) files
- Deleted or formatted files (that's data recovery, a different job)
- Pages whose content was never written to disk
How it works
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Upload Drop the file in. It uploads over an encrypted connection. The repair runs automatically — no person looks at your file.
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Free watermarked preview You see watermarked pages from the repaired PDF and the recovered page count.
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Pay & download If the preview shows what you need, unlock the repaired PDF for a one-time $12 USD.
You see watermarked pages from the repaired PDF and the recovered page count before you decide anything — so you never guess.
Browse by problem
Questions
The engine tries several PDF recovery and rewrite paths, including reconstructing damaged cross-reference information. Each candidate is reopened without recovery mode and counted for readable pages and objects before the best validated result is selected.
The free preview shows watermarked pages from the repaired PDF and the recovered page count. It is a sample of the rebuilt document you can inspect before paying.
It can. Rewriting a damaged PDF preserves readable objects, but missing fonts, images, content streams, annotations, forms, bookmarks, or relationships cannot be recreated. Inspect the watermarked page preview before paying, then check the full downloaded document before relying on its layout.
No. This is corruption repair, not password removal. Encrypted or password-protected PDFs are outside the repair flow.
No. A rebuilt PDF can contain readable page structures while some content is missing. Inspect the watermarked page preview to judge the content shown; a page count alone does not prove that every page is complete.
The engine validates the candidates it can produce and selects by recovered page count, then object count. The free preview shows watermarked pages and the recovered page count from that selected file.
A one-time $12 USD — and only if the repair works. The watermarked page preview is free, and checkout is unavailable when no repair path produces a validated PDF with at least one page.
No. Repair, validation, and preview generation are automated. Originals of repaired files are kept encrypted only until your repaired file is deleted, at most 2 days after you pay, then deleted; unrepaired files are kept encrypted for up to 30 days, then deleted.
No. FileFix performs the repair on its servers. You only need a PDF reader to inspect the downloaded result.
No. The engine can reorganize and rewrite PDF objects that remain in the uploaded bytes. It cannot recreate a page or content stream that never arrived.
The preview renders recovered pages as watermarked images, so you can inspect scanned content without extracting text or running OCR. It only shows content present in the repaired PDF.
Do not rely on it. PDF repair rewrites the file, while a digital signature authenticates specific original bytes. Verify signatures independently and obtain a fresh signed copy when authenticity matters.
No. It writes a separate repaired PDF from a validated candidate. The original file on your device remains unchanged.