Locked files, vector logos, phone workflows: image extraction off the happy path
Extracting images from PDFs in the awkward cases: password-protected files, vector graphics that aren't images, and doing the whole job on a phone.
UnboundPDF is a free suite of 43 PDF and image tools that run entirely in your browser — merge, split, compress, edit text, OCR in 126 languages, redact, sign, convert and archive to PDF/A. Your document is read and written by the page on your own device; there is no document-upload endpoint in the core tools, no account, no watermark and no daily cap. Every result can be checked — with the Network tab, or with the Document Passport the Workspace writes for a chain of steps.
Quick start for the happy path. Extract Images: add the PDF, get every embedded image at its stored resolution. This page is about the three cases where that runs into something.
Case 1: the file is locked
Extraction needs to read the document, so a password-protected PDF must open first. With the password, chain it: Unlock → extract from the open copy. Without the password there is no path — by design, and any tool claiming otherwise deserves suspicion. The unlock explainer covers what is and is not possible.
Case 2: the "image" is a drawing
Logos, charts and diagrams are often vector art — instructions to draw, not stored pixels — and extraction returns nothing for them because there is genuinely no image to return. The tool says so rather than inventing one. Your move: render the page at high DPI and crop, which gives a raster of the vector at any resolution you like. The extract-vs-render decision in full.
Case 3: the whole job is on a phone
The property PDF arrived in the chat and the pictures need to reach your photo library: run extraction in the phone browser, the images land as a ZIP in downloads, open it and save what you need to Photos. Big scans mean a big ZIP — Wi-Fi helps nobody here, it is all local; it is only storage.
Troubleshooting
Hundreds of tiny images came out. Some generators tile large photos into strips — the fragments really are the document's stored images. Render those pages instead. Extracted photos look washed out. Some PDFs store images with masks and colour transforms applied at draw time; render the page when fidelity-to-the-page beats fidelity-to-the-stored-bytes. The ZIP won't open on the phone. The Files app handles ZIPs on both platforms — tap it there rather than in the chat preview.
Frequently asked questions
Can I extract from a password-protected PDF?
Unlock it first with its password, then extract from the open copy — two tools, one minute.
Why did the company logo not extract?
It is probably vector art — a drawing, not an image. Render the page to a high-resolution image instead; extraction honestly returns nothing for vectors.
Does extraction work on a phone?
Yes — same tool in the phone browser; the images arrive as a ZIP in downloads.
Try it yourself
Free, private, no account. Runs entirely in your browser.