How to merge several PDFs into one
In 30 seconds: go to ilovepdf.com, pick the Merge PDF tool, drag your files in, check the order and hit the red button. Free, no sign-up, nothing to install.
You have three or four separate PDFs and someone asks you to send them as a single file. A quarter of invoices, the chapters of an assignment, the pages of a contract scanned one by one. Merging them takes under a minute, it is free, and there is nothing to install and no account to create. Here are the steps, and at the end the questions that usually come up — including the most important one: what happens to your files once you upload them.
Go to iLovePDF
Go to ilovepdf.com. If the site comes up in another language, you change it from the top right: click the nine-dots icon and look for Language.
What you are looking at is the home page with every tool: compress, convert, split. The one you need is the first one in the grid, Merge PDF. Click it.
Select your PDF files
Click the red Select PDF files button. Your computer's file window opens.
Here is a trick that saves time: you can pick several at once. Click the first one, hold down Ctrl and click the rest. If they sit next to each other in the list, click the first, hold Shift and click the last.
You can also drag the files straight from your folder onto the red box. And if they live in the cloud, the small icons beside it pull them from Google Drive or Dropbox.
Put them in the order you want
Each PDF shows up as a card, with its name and a preview of its first page.
And here is the part almost nobody knows: the order of the cards is the order they will be merged in. If it is not what you want, drag a card and drop it where it belongs. There is also a button at the top right to sort them all by name at once.
Check this order before you go on. Afterwards you cannot change it without starting over.
Click "Merge PDF"
Once the order is right, click the red Merge PDF button at the bottom right.
It takes a few seconds. With large files or a lot of pages it can stretch to about half a minute.
Download the merged PDF
The result screen appears with the Download merged PDF button. Click it and the file lands in your downloads folder.
Look at the small icons beside it, because they are useful:
- Google Drive and Dropbox save the file straight to the cloud, without downloading it.
- The link icon creates a URL for sharing the PDF, instead of having to attach it to an email.
- The bin deletes the file from the server right then, without waiting for it to expire.
What happens to your files
This is the part almost no tutorial mentions, and it is worth knowing.
To merge your PDFs, your files are uploaded to an iLovePDF server. They are processed there and deleted automatically after a few hours. The connection is encrypted and the company states it does not keep or analyse the content.
For everyday documents — notes, invoices, a CV — there is no problem at all. But if what you are merging holds genuinely sensitive data, like medical records or contracts with bank details, think twice: for that you are better off with a program that runs on your own computer and uploads nothing.
If you upload it anyway, at least click the bin when you are done, to wipe it from the server there and then.
Other useful tools
Before you close the page, look at the Continue to... section under the download button.
From there you can chain another tool onto the file you just made, without uploading it again:
- Compress PDF, if it is too heavy to email.
- Add page numbers, handy when you have merged documents that had none.
- Split PDF, if you merged too much and want a part back on its own.
- Protect PDF, to put a password on it before sending.
One click and you carry on working on the same document.
And that is it: several PDFs turned into one, free and with nothing installed.
Keep the two things that really matter: check the order of the cards before merging, because afterwards you cannot change it, and think about which documents you upload to someone else's website.
Common questions
Is it safe to upload a contract or documents with personal data?
It depends how sensitive it is. Files travel encrypted, are processed on the iLovePDF server and are deleted automatically after a few hours. For notes, invoices or a CV there is no problem. For medical records, contracts with bank details or other people's documents, you are better off with a program that runs on your own computer and uploads nothing. If you upload it anyway, click the bin icon when you are done to wipe it from the server there and then.
Is there a limit on the number of files or their size?
The free version lets you merge around 20 to 25 files at a time and caps the size of each one. If you go over, the site tells you before it processes anything. A simple way round it without paying: merge in two batches, then merge the two results.
Will my pages end up out of order?
Not if you check the order first. The cards that appear after uploading are in the exact order the files will be merged in, and you can drag them around. The usual mistake is hitting Merge without looking: once merged, changing the order means starting from scratch.
Can I merge PDFs on my phone?
Yes. The site works the same in a phone browser, though dragging cards around to reorder them is noticeably more awkward on a small screen. If you do this often from your phone, the iLovePDF app is worth it. For a one-off, the browser is fine.
Do I need to sign up or pay?
No. Merging PDFs works with no account and no payment. The paid version removes the size and file-count limits and lets you process several batches in a row, but for merging a handful of documents you do not need it.
Does merging lose quality?
No. Merging does not re-compress anything: it takes the pages from each file and puts them one after another, as they are. The result weighs roughly what the originals added up to. What does reduce quality is compressing, which is a different tool.
