How to repair a pdf received as a damaged email attachment
- Step 1Save the attachment to your device — Download the PDF attachment from your email to your local storage.
- Step 2Upload it to the repair tool — Drop the damaged PDF into the tool.
- Step 3Run the repair — The tool attempts to reconstruct a valid PDF structure.
- Step 4Test the output and request re-send if needed — Open the repaired PDF. If content is incomplete, ask the sender to re-attach the file.
Frequently asked questions
Can I tell if the PDF is truly corrupted before trying the repair?+
If your PDF viewer shows an error like 'failed to load PDF document' or 'file does not begin with %PDF', the file is corrupted.
What if only some pages are damaged?+
The repair tool recovers what it can — partially corrupted files often yield all readable pages intact.
Could the sender's email provider be causing the corruption?+
Some enterprise email gateways apply virus scanning transformations that can corrupt binary attachments. Ask the sender to use a file-sharing link instead.
Privacy first
All PDF processing runs locally in your browser using PDF-lib and pdf.js. No file is ever uploaded — only metadata counters are saved for signed-in dashboard stats.