Your Mac can merge PDFs without a paid editor. Preview gives you page thumbnails and control over ordering, while Finder Quick Actions can combine several files quickly in the background.
This guide applies to recent macOS versions using Preview and Finder.
Does This Affect You?
Use Preview when page order matters or you want to inspect pages. Use Finder Quick Actions when you have several PDFs already named or sorted in the right order.
Merge PDFs in Preview
- Open the first PDF in Preview.
- Choose View > Thumbnails to show page thumbnails in the sidebar.
- Open Finder and locate the other PDFs.
- Drag each PDF into the thumbnail sidebar where you want its pages inserted.
- Reorder pages by dragging thumbnails if needed.
- Choose File > Export as PDF, name the combined file, and save it.
Merge PDFs from Finder
- Open Finder to the folder containing the PDFs.
- Rename files with prefixes such as 01, 02, and 03 if order matters.
- Select the PDF files.
- Right-click or Control-click the selection.
- Choose Quick Actions > Create PDF.
- Open the new PDF and confirm pages are present and ordered correctly.
PDF Merge Notes
Enable Create PDF if Missing
If Create PDF is not shown, check Finder extension or Quick Action settings and enable it.
Images Can Be Included
Preview and Finder can combine PDFs with images such as JPG or PNG files, converting them into pages in the final PDF.
Fix Page Order Later
Open the merged PDF in Preview, show thumbnails, drag pages into place, and save.
Reduce a Large PDF
In Preview, use File > Export and choose the Reduce File Size Quartz Filter. It can shrink scanned PDFs, with some quality loss.
Sources
- Apple Support: Combine PDFs using Preview on Mac
- Apple Support: Use Quick Actions in Finder on Mac
- Apple Support: Edit PDFs in Preview on Mac