Which PDF reader is free?

Last reviewed: October 7, 2026 · Markdown version

For reading a PDF, the free option is the one already on your phone or computer: Preview and Books on an iPhone, Files by Google and Chrome on Android, and Chrome's built-in viewer on a computer. Adobe's Acrobat Reader is free to download too, but its own listing splits its features into free ones and paid ones. In Adobe's split, reading, searching one document, highlighting and signing are free, while editing the text, recognising scanned pages and converting to Word are paid.

Reader	What the maker's own page says about cost
Preview and Books (iPhone)	Apple's guide pages for them mention no price
Files by Google (Android)	Google Play lists a price of 0 and no in-app purchases
Chrome (Android 12 and up, computers)	No price mentioned; on Android you "don’t need to download the PDF or use a PDF reader"
Acrobat Reader (iPhone, Android)	"Free · In‑App Purchases"; editing, OCR and export listed as paid

On an iPhone: Preview and Books

Apple's guide writes Preview's steps as if the app is already there: "Go to the Preview app on your iPhone", and it says "You can browse and open PDFs and images directly in Preview, without opening the Files app first" (Open and view PDFs and images in Preview on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 7 October 2026). That page carries versions for iOS 27 and iOS 26 only, so an older iPhone may not have Preview. Books is the other built-in route: "You can open and save PDFs in the Books app that you receive in Mail, Messages, or other apps", with the caveat that "Apple Books isn’t available in all countries or regions" (Read PDF documents in the Books app on iPhone, iPhone User Guide, read 7 October 2026). Neither page mentions a price. Choosing which of them opens your PDFs is covered on changing the PDF reader on iPhone.

On Android: Files by Google and Chrome

Google's help says "You can directly open and edit PDF files in the Files by Google app", and the open file has a Find in file command to "Search for specific text in the PDF" (Open, manage & edit PDFs in Files by Google, Files by Google Help, read 7 October 2026). The help page does not talk about cost; the app's Google Play listing gives a price of 0 in its product data and, unlike Acrobat Reader's listing, shows no in-app purchases line (Files by Google, Google Play, read 7 October 2026).

Chrome reads PDFs itself on newer phones. Google's page says "You don’t need to download the PDF or use a PDF reader", with the condition that "your device must run Android 12 and up" (Manage PDFs in Chrome (Android), Google Chrome Help, read 7 October 2026). Which app a given phone uses by default is a separate question, answered on the Android default-reader page.

On a computer: the browser

On a computer, Chrome's viewer does more than display. Google lists highlighting, adding text and filling out and signing paperwork, and says scanned PDFs "are automatically converted to be searchable and selectable using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)", with "The conversion is completed on your device without sending any data to Google or third parties" (Manage PDFs in Chrome (computer), Google Chrome Help, read 7 October 2026). Google Drive on the web opens PDFs as well: "you can view things like videos, PDFs, Microsoft Office files, audio files, and photos" (View & open files, Google Drive Help, read 7 October 2026), though that means the file is in your Drive first.

Acrobat Reader: free to install, with a paid side

Adobe's App Store listing for Acrobat Reader shows "Free · In‑App Purchases" and sorts the app's features into two lists. Under "Free-to-use features" it names Fill & Sign ("free & available in Acrobat Reader"), Liquid Mode with "Search, navigate & adjust font size or spacing", and annotation: "Add sticky notes, comments, and highlight text". Under "Paid features" it lists editing text and images, Optical Character Recognition that "turns scanned PDFs into searchable, editable text", merging and organising pages, exporting to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, compression and password protection, and the AI Assistant (Acrobat Reader: PDF Editor, App Store listing by Adobe Inc., read 7 October 2026). The Google Play listing carries the same "Free-to-use features" wording (Adobe Acrobat Reader: Edit PDF, Google Play, read 7 October 2026).

So if all you do is read, highlight and sign, the free side covers it. If what you actually need is OCR on a scan, there are free routes that do not involve a subscription; the free OCR page compares them.

Free, and searching more than one file

Every reader above works on the document you have open. If the trouble is that you have dozens of PDFs and cannot remember which one holds a sentence, DocFind searches inside many PDFs at once and shows the file, the page and the surrounding text for each hit. Its free tier is one library of up to 25 documents, 10 scanned pages and 10 exports every month, unlimited keywords and unlimited results. It is a search tool rather than a full reader: it does not edit, annotate or sign PDFs, it handles PDFs only, and it runs on iPhone and Android.