Where blank pages come from
Mostly from double-sided scanning. A document feeder set to scan both sides captures the back of every sheet, including the ones with nothing on them. A 20-page agreement printed single-sided becomes a 40-page PDF with 20 empty pages. The file is bigger than it needs to be, and whoever reads it scrolls past a gap after every page.
Drop the scan here and the empty pages are marked before you’ve done anything. Look through the grid, tap any page to change its mark, then press Remove blank pages.
How we decide a page is blank
Every page is checked on your device, with rules chosen so that a real page is never thrown away:
- Skip the edges. Scanners leave shadows, punch holes and page numbers near the edges. We ignore the outer 7% of each side, about what scanning software skips.
- Measure the paper. The page’s own typical brightness counts as paper, so cream, grey recycled or yellowed paper still reads as empty.
- Look for ink. Ink is anything clearly darker than that paper: under three quarters of its brightness. Show-through from the printed side of the sheet is much fainter than that, so it doesn’t count. A lone dark speck is treated as dust.
- Count it. A page is blank only when fewer than 1 pixel in 20,000 is ink.
That last number is strict on purpose. A single short word in normal print inks about 1 pixel in 2,500, eight times the limit. Initials, a tick, a date or a stamp all keep a page. Missing a dusty blank page costs you a second of tapping; removing a page with someone’s initials on it could cost much more.
If every page in a file looks blank, we mark none of them. That usually means a very faint scan or the wrong file, and it’s better for you to look.
Pages that say they’re blank
“This page is intentionally left blank” has words on it, so it’s kept. Tap it to remove it yourself.
After removing
The file gets smaller, though by less than you might expect: an empty scanned page compresses well, so it weighs less than a written one. If it needs to be smaller still for an upload, go on to Compress PDF. For pages that aren’t blank but aren’t needed either, use Delete PDF pages.
Checked against the tool on 22 October 2026. How we write and test these guides