How to Merge PDFs on a Mac — Preview vs Browser

Method 1: Preview's sidebar

1. Open the first PDF in Preview.

2. Turn on the thumbnails sidebar from the View menu.

3. Drag the second PDF from Finder onto the sidebar where you want its pages.

4. To keep the original intact, save the result as a new file (Export, or Duplicate then save). Simply closing saves the change into the first file.

Preview: pros and cons

Pros: built into macOS, and you can position pages one by one.

Cons: with many files you drag them in one at a time; dropping onto the page area instead of the sidebar does something different; and it's easy to overwrite the original by accident.

Method 2: anyview.dev in your browser

1. Open anyview.dev and drag all the PDFs in from Finder at once.

2. Set the order with the ⋮⋮ handle or the ↑↓ buttons.

3. Click “Merge into one”. A new PDF lands in Downloads; the originals are untouched.

Browser: pros and cons

Pros: handles many files in one go, never modifies originals, and works the same on Windows and iPhone. Pages are copied, not re-rendered, so quality is unchanged.

Cons: it merges whole files — to slot pages into the middle of a document, run “Split pages” first and then merge. Bookmarks and form fields may not carry over, and the free version takes up to 20 files per batch.