How to remove highlights from a PDF on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

An old highlight can outlive its purpose. A lecture chapter may be covered in last term’s markings, or a report may contain a comment you do not want in the copy you send. The right operation is usually to delete the annotation—not the sentence beneath it.

That distinction depends on how the mark was stored. A live PDF highlight is a separate object associated with page text. A yellow stripe scanned from paper, or a highlight already flattened into the page, is part of the page appearance. They can look identical while requiring very different decisions.

Keep the marked original before you start

Make a duplicate in Files or Finder and give it a clear name, such as week-2-reading-clean-copy.pdf. Open that duplicate for cleanup. Keep the marked version if its comments, decisions, or study notes may still be useful.

Choose one unwanted highlight as a test. Do not begin by deleting every annotation: a document may also contain useful notes, drawings, placed signatures, or other objects you intended to retain. A clean reading copy and a complete review record are different deliverables.

For a shared review, agree on which feedback belongs in the outgoing copy before deleting it. Removing a comment is not the same as addressing the issue it raised.

Remove a highlight in Preview on Mac

For a straightforward Mac cleanup, Apple’s built-in Preview may be enough:

1. Open the duplicate PDF in Preview.
2. Control-click the highlighted text.
3. Choose Remove Highlight from the shortcut menu.
4. Confirm that the color disappears while the sentence remains.

Apple documents the same approach for removing an underline or strikethrough. To find marks across a longer document, choose View → Highlights and Notes and use the sidebar to navigate them.

This is the documented Mac workflow; do not assume the same menu arrangement appears on an iPhone or iPad. The PDF Max workflow below uses its annotation controls across all three platforms.

Remove the selected mark in PDF Max

Open the duplicate in PDF Max. Use the normal annotation/review workflow, rather than entering Edit PDF to change the underlying page content.

1. Finish any active drawing or highlighting operation with Done.
2. Tap or click the unwanted highlight itself to select that annotation.
3. Open the contextual Annotation tab if it is not already shown.
4. Choose Delete.
5. Inspect the same passage before continuing to the next mark.

The Delete action targets the selected annotation. It is not a command to delete the highlighted words. Check the active selection carefully, especially where several marks overlap or a small comment sits beside the passage.

If the wrong object disappears, use Undo immediately and reselect the intended mark. Keeping the untouched original remains important; an undo history is not a substitute for a separate source copy.

For a reading reset, proceed through the pages and remove only the marks that are no longer useful. There is no need to flatten, compress, rasterize, or rewrite the text merely to remove a live highlight.

Decide whether you mean the highlight or its comment

A colored mark and the discussion attached to it are not the same thing. In PDF Max, Annotate → Show Comments opens the comment surface. Depending on the device and available width, this appears as a panel or a sheet. Open the relevant thread and use its message actions.

Choose the action that matches your intention:

Intention	Action	What to check afterward
Remove the colored mark itself	Select the annotation on the page, then choose Delete	The mark is gone and page text remains
Remove a thread attached to a highlight	Choose Delete Thread in the root message’s actions	The discussion is gone; the highlight itself can remain
Remove only one reply	Choose Delete Comment on that reply	The rest of the thread is still present
Record that feedback has been handled	Resolve the thread	The thread has a resolved status, rather than being deleted

Deleting a standalone sticky-note annotation removes that note. Deleting the discussion attached to an ordinary highlight clears its comment content without being the same operation as deleting the highlight. Recheck both the page and the Comments surface so you know which result you produced.

Why a highlight may not be removable

Failure to select a mark does not, by itself, prove that the PDF is flattened. Check these possibilities before changing the page:

• A creation tool is still active. Finish it, then try selecting the existing mark.
• You selected text instead of the annotation. Look for the annotation-specific controls before deleting anything.
• The file or object is restricted. Use a copy you are authorized to modify, or ask the owner for an editable original. Do not treat a missing Delete action as permission to bypass restrictions.
• The color belongs to the page content. A colored background authored in the source document is not necessarily a highlight annotation.
• The mark was scanned or flattened. It may now be pixels or page drawing content rather than a separate annotation.

For the last two cases, the dependable route is an unmarked or unflattened source. You cannot assume that removing a live annotation will reconstruct what was underneath a baked-in mark. The guide to checking whether a PDF is flattened explains how to test a known interactive original against the delivery copy.

Avoid placing a white rectangle over the highlight: it may obscure the words too, and it merely adds another cover. Likewise, redaction removes content for a different purpose. It is not a highlight-cleanup tool when the words should remain readable.

Know the plan and device requirements

Annotation styling and deletion, comments, replies, and resolution are included with PDF Max Free. They are also available in PDF Max Pro and Premium. This cleanup workflow requires no Apple Intelligence, language model, or model download.

The current App Store requirements are iOS 18 or later, iPadOS 18 or later, or macOS 15 or later on a Mac with an M1 chip or newer. The plan comparison separates these Free annotation tools from Premium page-content editing and document transformations.

Verify the copy you will actually use

Save your changes, close the document, and reopen the cleaned copy from its saved location. Then check:

1. The unwanted highlight is absent on each edited page.
2. The words beneath it are still visible and unchanged.
3. Previously searchable text can still be found and copied.
4. Comments and replies you meant to delete are gone, while retained feedback is still present.
5. Page count, useful links, and untouched annotations have not changed unexpectedly.
6. The same edited pages look correct in a second PDF viewer.

Use the wider final document review checklist when the copy is leaving your device. For your own reading, keep the marked original alongside it until you are sure the old notes are no longer needed.

Start with one page in PDF Max Free: remove one unwanted highlight, save, and reopen the copy. Confirm that the annotation disappeared—not the content you still need—before cleaning the rest of the document.