# Edit, Sign and Merge PDFs Without a Subscription > Folio is a free PDF editor for Mac from Ential. Edit existing text, sign, fill forms, merge and redact PDFs, all offline with no account. Canonical page (authoritative, may be newer than this text): https://www.ential.com/folio --- Change the words already in a PDF, fill in forms, sign contracts and put pages in order. Folio does all of it on your Mac, with no account and nothing uploaded. [Download for Mac24.5 MB](/folio/download) See what it does Free Version 1.4.2 macOS 14 Sonoma or later Apple silicon [Made by Ential](/) Go on, pick a tool above the page and use it. Edit text changes the words already in the PDF. ## Put Every Page Exactly Where It Belongs Drag thumbnails into order, then rotate, duplicate, crop, insert, extract or delete. Add files merges other PDFs in without changing the originals. Try it below. Drop in PNG, JPEG or TIFF images and they become pages Pull any range of pages out into a new PDF ⌘Z puts the old order back ## Everything Else a PDF Asks of You Signatures, forms, search, redaction, text recognition, tabs and export. Every one of them works offline. ### Sign Once and Reuse It on Every Contract Draw, type or import a signature and your initials. Folio keeps them in a library on your Mac, so the next agreement takes a single click. Try drawing one above. ### Fill in Forms Without Printing Them Click into any standard PDF form field and type. Your answers save with the PDF, ready to send straight back. ### Find Any Word, Even on a Scan Search checks the text layer and the rendered page, so scanned documents turn up results too. Click a result to jump straight to it. ### Black Out Private Details for Good Select the sensitive text and Folio exports a copy where every page becomes an image, with the words blacked out in the pixels. The original text layer is not copied across. ### Copy the Words off a Scanned Page Text recognition runs on your Mac with Apple's Vision framework. Copy what it reads from the page and paste it anywhere. ### Work Across Several PDFs at Once Each tab keeps its own edits, page position, search results and Undo history. Close a tab with unsaved changes and Folio asks before anything is lost. ### Send It in the Format They Asked For Save an editable PDF, a flattened one or a password-protected copy, export PNG or JPEG images at 144 or 300 dpi, or pull out the plain text. ## Private Paperwork Never Leaves Your Mac Folio has no servers, no account and no analytics. Every file it opens, edits and saves stays in folders on your Mac. Nothing Leaves Your Mac There are no analytics, no advertising and no cloud uploads. Folio opens, edits and saves files in folders you choose. Start Without an Account There is no sign-up, licence key or subscription. Download it, open it and drop in a PDF. Text Recognition Runs Locally Apple's Vision framework reads scanned pages on the device, so private documents never pass through an AI service. Text Edits Work Offline Too Changes to existing text run through a MuPDF engine bundled inside the app, which never touches the network. Your Signatures Stay Yours Saved signatures and initials live in a file only your Mac account can read. They are never uploaded. Unsaved Work Is Kept Safe Folio writes a recovery copy of every unsaved tab about every 15 seconds and offers it back the next time it opens. ## Give Your Whole Team a Proper PDF Editor Folio is free to download and free to keep. There is no trial, no paid tier and no subscription to cancel later. [Download for Mac24.5 MB](/folio/download) Free Version 1.4.2 macOS 14 Sonoma or later Apple silicon ### Open Folio in 3 Steps 1 Drag It into Applications Open the download to show the Folio disk image, then drag Folio onto the Applications folder beside it. Safari opens the download for you. 2 Approve It Once Folio is not notarised by Apple yet, so macOS stops the first launch. Click Done, open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway, then confirm with your password. 3 Try It on a Practice Document A 3-step tour opens the first time. After it, choose Try a practice document to test every tool without touching your own files. Prefer Terminal? This clears the download flag for Folio only. xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Folio.app Copy ## Questions Before You Download Is Folio really free? Yes. There is no trial, no paid tier, no subscription and no account. Download it and keep it. Why does macOS say it cannot verify Folio? Folio is not notarised by Apple yet, so macOS blocks the first launch. Click Done, then open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. You only do this once per version. Which Macs does it run on? Apple silicon Macs (M1 and newer) running macOS 14 Sonoma or later. An Intel build is not available yet. Can it change the text that is already in a PDF? Yes, one line at a time. Folio replaces the actual text in the file rather than covering it with a white box, and keeps the size and colour with a matching local font. It does not reflow whole paragraphs, and scanned or outlined letters are images, so they cannot be edited as text. Are the signatures digital certificates? No. Drawn, typed and imported signatures are visual signatures, like signing a printed page. Certificate-based signing, signature verification and remote signature requests are not included. Where do my files go? Wherever you save them. Folio keeps recovery copies of unsaved tabs in ~/Library/Application Support/Folio on your Mac, and your saved signatures sit in the same folder with owner-only permissions. Nothing is uploaded. Why is the download 24.5 MB? Folio carries its own offline MuPDF engine for editing existing text, so nothing needs installing and no edit ever goes over the network. Is the source code available? The engine that edits existing text is built from PyMuPDF and MuPDF, which are open source under the AGPL. Its complete source, with our engine script and build files, is free to download from www.ential.com/folio/source. Can it replace Adobe Acrobat? For everyday reading, editing, signing, forms and page work, yes. It does not do Office conversion, document comparison, batch automation, collaboration, PDF/A certification or print preflight. ## Get Tools Like Folio Built for Your Business We build custom software and automations for businesses too, shaped around the paperwork your team handles every day. Start your audit See our free tools --- Ential Pty Ltd (ABN 30 408 729 275) · hello@ential.com · https://www.ential.com