How to Combine, Split and Delete PDF Pages on a Mac

macOS can rearrange PDF pages without any extra software, and has been able to for years — so the first thing worth saying is that you almost certainly do not need Acrobat, and you definitely do not need to upload a contract to a website.

There are two routes. Preview is already on your Mac and handles the one-off well. A file manager handles the case where this is a recurring chore.

Combining PDFs in Preview

1. Open the first PDF in Preview.
2. View ▸ Thumbnails to show the page sidebar.
3. Drag the second PDF from Finder into that sidebar, dropping it where its pages should go.
4. File ▸ Save.

It works, and it is free. Two things about it catch people out.

It edits the file you opened. The second document’s pages are added to the first one, in place — there is no new file unless you remember to File ▸ Duplicate first. If the first PDF was the signed original, it no longer is.

It is a per-file drag. Four documents means four drags into the right positions, and getting one wrong means undoing and re-dropping.

Combining PDFs from the file list

If merging is something you do more than once, the fewer-steps version is to do it where the files already are. In ComfortFiles: select the PDFs, right-click, PDF tools ▸ Merge.

A new Merged.pdf appears in the same folder. Both originals are left exactly as they were — nothing is edited in place, so there is nothing to undo if the order came out wrong.

The order is the order of your list. The files are joined in the order they were showing, which means you set the page order by sorting the folder before you merge. That is the useful half of it — sort by name, by date, or drag the sort you want and merge — and it is also the trap, because Scan 1, Scan 2, Scan 10 sorts as 1, 10, 2. Rename them with leading zeros first and the problem goes away permanently.

Splitting a PDF into pages

Preview has no split command. You can drag pages out of the thumbnail sidebar one at a time onto the desktop, which is fine for one page and miserable for fifty.

PDF tools ▸ Split into pages writes every page as its own PDF into a new <name> (pages) folder next to the original. A 99-page book takes about three seconds.

The page numbers are padded — Contract 01.pdf, not Contract 1.pdf — so that page 10 does not sort between 1 and 2. It is a small thing that matters the moment you have more than nine pages and want to merge some of them back together.

Keeping or dropping specific pages

“Extract pages 4 to 9” and “delete page 3” are the same question asked twice: which pages? So they are one dialog with a switch rather than two commands to choose between.

Right-click → PDF tools ▸ Extract or Remove Pages…, then:

• Type the pages: 1-3, 7, 10-12.
• Choose Keep only these or Remove these.

As you type, the dialog says what the result will be — “Keeps 7 of 99 pages” — because a typed range is easy to get wrong and impossible to check by staring at it. It also names the file it is about to create, and states plainly that the original will not be changed:

• Keeping pages gives <name> (pages 1-3, 7, 10-12).pdf — the file says what is in it.
• Removing pages gives <name> (trimmed).pdf.

If the range would remove every page, the button stays off rather than producing an empty document.

Rotating, and turning pages into images

Two more that live in the same menu:

Rotate Left / Rotate Right turns every page of the selected PDFs at once, in place, and ⌘Z turns them back. This is the one command here that does change the original — rotation is lossless and instantly reversible, so a copy would be clutter rather than safety.

PDF to Images writes one PNG per page into a <name> (images) folder. It is the slow one — about a minute for 99 pages — because each page is rendered at twice its nominal size so it stays sharp on a Retina display. There is a progress bar, and it can be stopped; a cancelled run removes the half-finished folder rather than leaving you to work out how far it got.

Where to go from here

If the file is also too big to send, that is a separate job with its own measured answers: how to compress a PDF on a Mac.

For every one of these commands in detail, with what each one names its output, see how the PDF tools work.

Frequently asked questions

How do I combine two PDF files on a Mac?

In Preview: open the first PDF, show the thumbnail sidebar (View ▸ Thumbnails), then drag the second PDF's file icon into that sidebar where you want its pages to land, and save. In ComfortFiles: select both files in the list, right-click, and choose PDF tools ▸ Merge — a new Merged.pdf appears beside them and neither original is touched.

What order do the pages end up in when I merge PDFs?

Whatever order the files are in when you run it — so sort the folder the way you want the pages before you merge, not after. This catches people out with names like Scan 1, Scan 2, Scan 10: sorted as text, 10 lands between 1 and 2. Renaming them 01, 02, 10 fixes the order for good.

How do I split a PDF into separate pages on a Mac?

Preview has no split command — you would drag each page out of the thumbnail sidebar one at a time. In ComfortFiles, right-click the PDF and choose PDF tools ▸ Split into pages: every page is written as its own file into a new <name> (pages) folder beside the original. A 99-page book takes about 3 seconds.

How do I delete pages from a PDF on a Mac?

In Preview, select the page in the thumbnail sidebar and press Delete — but note that this edits the file itself. In ComfortFiles, right-click and choose PDF tools ▸ Extract or Remove Pages…, type the pages, and switch the dialog to Remove these; the original is left alone and a new <name> (trimmed).pdf is written beside it.

How do I extract certain pages from a PDF?

The same dialog, set to Keep only these. Type a range like 1-3, 7, 10-12 and it tells you what you are about to get — "Keeps 7 of 99 pages" — before you commit. The result is saved as <name> (pages 1-3, 7, 10-12).pdf, so the file says what is in it without opening it.

Do I need Adobe Acrobat to combine or split PDFs on a Mac?

No. Everything on this page is either built into macOS or done locally by a file manager. Acrobat's subscription buys editing the text inside a PDF and things like redaction — not rearranging pages, which macOS has been able to do for years.

Is it safe to use an online PDF merger?

It means uploading the document to a server you do not control, and the PDFs people merge are typically contracts, IDs, invoices and scanned records — the exact documents that should stay on the machine. Both routes here do the job locally, so the question does not arise.

Can I turn PDF pages into images on a Mac?

Yes. Preview can export one page at a time via File ▸ Export…. For the whole document, ComfortFiles has PDF tools ▸ PDF to Images, which writes one PNG per page into a <name> (images) folder. It is the slow one — around a minute for 99 pages — because every page is rendered at double size so the result is sharp on a Retina display.