Auto-delete blank pages from a PDF
Automatically detect blank pages (often inserted by scanners) and remove them. Works on both digital and scanned PDFs. Adjustable sensitivity.
Analyzing pages…
Scanners and document feeders frequently insert blank pages between sheets — duplex mode often produces a blank page after every odd-page-count scan, and copy machines sometimes feed extra blanks by accident. Manually identifying and removing each blank from a 200-page scan is tedious. PDFOnly's Delete Blank Pages tool detects blanks automatically by analyzing each page's pixel density, then rebuilds the PDF without them. Adjustable sensitivity lets you handle pages with stray marks, light watermarks, or page numbers that aren't truly 'blank' but should still be removed.
How to delete blank pages step by step
- 1
Upload the PDF
Drop the PDF you want cleaned. Both digital PDFs (with empty pages from a Word export, etc.) and scanned PDFs (with physical blanks from a scanner) work.
- 2
Adjust sensitivity (optional)
Default detects pages that are 99%+ white as blank — works for most scans. Lower the threshold (e.g. to 95%) if your blanks have light marks like watermarks or page numbers that you want considered 'blank enough' to remove. Higher (99.5%) is stricter and only removes truly empty pages.
- 3
Click Delete and download
We render each page to a low-resolution thumbnail using Ghostscript, measure the pixel density, and identify blanks. Non-blank pages are copied to a fresh PDF in their original order. The report tells you how many pages were detected and removed.
Why delete blank pages on PDFOnly
Pixel-density detection is robust
Some tools claim to detect blanks but only check for empty text content — they miss image-only blanks (which scanners often produce). Our pixel-based detection works on both.
Adjustable sensitivity
Real-world 'blank' pages often have stray marks (page numbers, watermarks, light show-through from the next page). Tuning the threshold lets you handle these without manual review.
Reports what was removed
After processing, we tell you exactly which page numbers were detected as blank. Useful for sanity-checking before relying on the output.
What people use delete blank pages for
A few common scenarios. If your workflow looks like one of these, this tool is a good fit.
Clean up a duplex scan
Scanning double-sided documents with an odd page count leaves a blank back page on every sheet. Run through Delete Blank Pages to strip them all at once.
Remove section dividers from a long report
Some scanners and copy machines produce blank dividers between sections. Auto-detect removes them so the output is dense and readable.
Tighten an archive of scanned documents
Years of scanned archives often have 10-30% wasted space from inserted blanks. Bulk-cleaning with Delete Blank Pages saves storage and improves search/index performance.
Prep scans before OCR
OCR processing on blank pages is wasted compute. Delete blanks first, then OCR the clean document — faster and cleaner results.
What you get
- Auto-detection — no need to manually identify each blank page
- Adjustable sensitivity (default 99% white = blank; tune lower for stricter detection)
- Works on both digital and scanned PDFs
- Lossless rebuild — non-blank pages preserved exactly
- Reports how many pages were removed and which numbers
- Free, no signup, files auto-deleted in 1 hour
Frequently asked questions
What counts as 'blank'?
By default, any page that's 99%+ white pixels is considered blank. This catches truly empty pages and pages with very minimal marks (faint show-through from the next page, tiny scanner artifacts). Adjust the sensitivity threshold if you need stricter or looser detection.
Will it delete pages with just a page number on them?
Depends on sensitivity. At default (99%), a page number takes up much less than 1% of the page, so the page IS classified as blank and removed. If you want to keep numbered blank pages (e.g. intentional dividers), lower the threshold to 97-98%.
What about pages with watermarks?
Watermarks typically have moderate pixel coverage (5-20%) and won't be detected as blank at any reasonable threshold. If you have very light watermarks (under 1% coverage), tune the threshold tighter to keep them.
Will the output PDF be smaller?
Yes — removed pages are gone from the file structure, so the output is smaller. If you delete 30 blank pages from a 200-page scan, expect ~15% file size reduction.
Does it work on color-scanned blank pages?
Yes. We measure pixel brightness (luminosity), not just exact white pixels. A faintly off-white scanned blank still classifies as blank at default settings.
What if I want to review which pages will be deleted before committing?
After processing, the report shows the detected blank pages by number. To preview-review-commit, run with very strict sensitivity first to see flagged pages, then adjust if needed and re-run with the right threshold.
Ready to delete blank pages?
Free to use for the basics. Files are auto-deleted within an hour and never used to train AI.
Open Delete Blank Pages