You can split a PDF on Mac without buying software. Preview, the app already on your Dock, handles the common cases: drag a page to the Desktop, print a range to a new file, or duplicate and delete what you don't need. Those three moves extract a few pages fast. For splitting every page into its own PDF, a dedicated tool like the one on splitpdf.biz does the job in one click.

Open the Page Sidebar in Preview

Open your PDF. Go to View > Thumbnails or press Option+Command+2. A sidebar slides out on the left showing a miniature of every page. That sidebar is the control centre. From it you select, drag, delete, or duplicate pages.

Extract a Single Page by Dragging to the Desktop

The fastest way to pull one page out of a PDF is to drag it.

  1. Open your PDF and make sure the sidebar is visible (View > Thumbnails).
  2. Click and hold the miniature of the page you want.
  3. Drag it out of the Preview window and drop it onto the Desktop or a folder.
  4. A new PDF appears containing only that page. The original file stays untouched.

Repeat the drag for each page you need individually.

Split a Page Range Using Print to PDF

When you need a continuous set of pages as a single new PDF, use the Print dialog. It's a two-step trick that surprises people.

  1. Open the PDF in Preview.
  2. Go to File > Print or press Command+P.
  3. In the Print dialog, click the PDF button near the bottom left, then choose Save as PDF.
  4. Under Pages, select From and enter the first page number, then to and enter the last.
  5. Click Save and pick a location.

The new file contains only the pages you specified. The original stays untouched. Use this to pull a chapter or a section out of a large document.

Delete Unwanted Pages After Duplicating the File

If the pages you want aren't a neat range, duplicate the file and cut what you don't need.

Duplicate the File First

Go to File > Duplicate or press Shift+Command+S. That creates an exact copy. Work on the duplicate so the original stays safe.

Select and Delete Unwanted Pages

In the duplicate, open the sidebar. To pick scattered pages, hold Command and click each one you want to remove. For a consecutive block, click the first, hold Shift, and click the last. Press Delete. The selected pages vanish. What remains is your custom set. Go to File > Save to lock it in.

This works for keeping only the odd-numbered pages or stripping out blanks.

Save Each Page as a Separate PDF Manually

To save every page as its own file one by one, combine the drag method with the duplicate-and-delete method. For a handful of pages, that's fine. For a long document it gets old fast.

  1. Open the PDF and show the sidebar.
  2. Drag the first page to the Desktop.
  3. Repeat for the next page, and the next.

Preview has no built-in command to split all pages at once. That is where a dedicated tool becomes practical.

One-Click Split of Every Page

The methods above handle a few pages or a range. Need to split a long PDF into individual files? Doing it manually is slow. A tool like the Split PDF tool on splitpdf.biz does it in one action. Upload the PDF, click split, and you get each page as its own file, named <original-name>-page-001.pdf, <original-name>-page-002.pdf, and so on. No watermark. Use it for archiving, sharing single pages, or processing each page separately.

Which Method to Use

  • One page only: Drag its miniature to the Desktop.
  • A continuous range: File > Print > Save as PDF with the From/To numbers.
  • A scattered set of pages: Duplicate the file, Command-click the pages you want to keep, delete the rest, and save.
  • Every page as its own PDF: Use a dedicated split tool like the one on splitpdf.biz for speed.

Preview covers basic splitting tasks. For bulk splitting, a one-click tool saves time and spares you repetitive dragging or printing.