PDF from bank comes already password protected

big_yella wrote:

Print to PDF option is not available, you can save as a Post Script file which is pretty useless.

Yes, I want to download the files and open with preview, and the "Change permissions" option is greyed out so I cannot enter my own password and cannot change the permissions either.

Thank you for the information about Adobe but how is a Reader going to allow me to do the above?

Sorry, I was using the paid up Acrobat, when I tried the free Acrobat Reader it did not have the ability to protect the document.

I use a bank that handles its pdf statements like yours does. What I did was the following:

Open the statement in the browser, don't download the pdf but instead view it in the browser. I used Safari.

From the browser, select Print and then Print to PDF within the print menu.

The pdf that is created from that was able to have its permissions changed and you can then assign a password to it. At least it worked for Chase Bank.

FYI, I never download the statements, I leave them online in the bank's server. I see no advantage to creating additional local copies.

big_yella wrote:

Here is what I found out as of today 1/1/2024::

Download the statement

- If you click View or Download, the statement gets downloaded no matter what

When I click View it opens in my browser. This might be something that can be set up as default in the Preferences or Settings for the browser.

Once it is open in my browser, I can Print to PDF and that PDF file can be password protected on my Mac.

If you cannot prevent it from downloading, you could try open the downloaded pdf file IN A WEB BROWSER and then Print to PDF to save it as a PDF and then try encrypting THAT new PDF file.

Does that work for you when you try it?

I have read the fine print of a few of these banking sites and they offer to paper mail the statements (at which point you can scan them in and password protect that PDF, then shred the paper versions ... seems like a lot of work, however) or make them available online for a certain number of years. But they don't say they will make the online statement available in a form so that the customer can modify it. Those downloaded versions seem to be in some form of read-only but as I explained above, there are ways around that (you found a different way around it also). The banks may not want the customer to be able to modify the file. It could be (I am speculating) that with Sonoma, Apple has begun to more fully comply with the standards, which may result in changes like you are seeing.

There is another way to do this that might involve a lot fewer steps: create an encrypted disk image on your Mac:

Create a disk image using Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

which you can then place all your (unencrypted) bank statements inside of, just like it is a folder or separate disk. But the disk image is encrypted with a strong password so no one can open it to see its contents except you.

Does it request a password when you try to open the .pdf using Preview or any other standard PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat? If so, then you have confirmed they have password protected the document. If not, then they still may have put some restrictions on the document to prevent any option other than simply viewing the PDF normally.

It is possible the app is misinterpreting the reason for the failure since document restrictions could be misinterpreted by an app as being password protected.

I have the same issue with one of my credit card statements. I found I had to export the statement and create a sort of copy. This I do in Preview. Once I do that I can do what I want to the statement as far as doing markups. Try that and see if it works for you. Just for reference are your statements coming from "Chase Bank"? I do the whole statement in one shot.

big_yella wrote:

It does not matter if I choose to archive my statements on my computer, that is my freedom to choose. I should not have to stop doing things just because they no longer work, not a good strategy.

Your bank apparently disagrees. I could be mistaken, but it sounds like the bank has placed some permissions restrictions (DRM) on their PDF statements – DRM features designed into the PDF format by Adobe, which are triggering this behavior by the Preview application in Sonoma.

Here, it sounds like it took three to tango:

• Adobe designed the mechanisms by which you can be restricted
• Apple – like others who implement PDF-related tools – implemented them
• The bank took advantage of them

It is also possible that the Preview application in Sonoma is interpreting the DRM within PDF files in a different or more restrictive fashion than the Preview application in previous versions of macOS. I can't say. I don't have the source code to look at. (For that matter, I'm still running Ventura, even though my Mac can run Sonoma.)

Note that Apple removed all support for PostScript from macOS with the release of Sonoma. PostScript was the predecessor to PDF, and was a ground-breaking page description language that played a major role in the rise of desktop publishing. It got pulled basically because it was too good; too powerful – it's a programming language, and so a .PS file that you thought was just a print file could actually contain malicious software.

However, I think this would only affect people trying to use PostScript, or to convert PostScript to PDF; not those trying to use a file that was already a PDF file. It's probably not related to your problem, but I'm mentioning it just in case there is some connection that other people would instantly recognize, and that I've missed.

Again, can we nail down why we are experiencing such behaviors all of a sudden?

That's a question you might want to ask Apple Engineering – or, since I doubt that you can contact them directly, Apple Support.

If you could submit some NON-sensitive PDF files that triggered the problem to Apple with the report, that might help. Since bank statements ARE sensitive, the next best thing might be to tell Apple the name of your bank, so that Apple could work with the bank to figure out what typical permissions settings in the bank statements might be.

Yes, use Adobe Acrobat Reader which is the native App for PDF files. There’s no security issue and Preview isn’t bug-free when it comes to PDF files. Go ahead & use it.

big_yella wrote:

1. For sake of security, I have tried not to download third-party applications.

You have no third party applications? That makes no sense, computers are designed to run these to add functionality.

Adobe Acrobat is the standard utilized across numerous government agencies in the U.S. and other countries, in part because of its highly secure configurability. If its security meets the requirements of those three-letter agencies, it must be good enough for you. It is also used by banks or other financial institutions. Acrobat Reader is the free version of this software.

What are you trying to do? You can download the files and open them with preview, but you cannot modify them, or save them with your own password?

Have you tried Print to PDF from Preview for these files, to create your own PDF?

big_yella wrote:

I can see the statement upon downloading in Preview however, the "Enter Permissions" is greyed out. This means I cannot change the permissions on the document and cannot Export it.

The "Enter Password" is NOT greyed out but you must know it in order to change the document. They swear they have not changed anyting and do not password protect their statements.

"Get info" of the statement says "Security = Password encrypted".

This is happening right now just for one bank, all other vendors/banks works as they always did.

I currently do not have Adobe.

Sounds like the bank is password-protecting their PDF statements, even if they are only password-protecting the files against some of the things listed in the Permissions section, rather than against viewing on-screen.

You can download and install the free version of Adobe PDF Reader, but I bet it will tell you a similar thing.

It’s free, download it and try?