If you have several separate PDF documents—such as individual scanned pages, receipts, or chapters of a report—you don’t need expensive third-party software to merge them. Your Mac has powerful built-in tools that can combine multiple PDFs into a single file in seconds.
Method 1: Using the Preview App (Best for Rearranging)
The native Preview application is perfect if you want to visually drag and drop pages exactly where you want them.
- Double-click your first PDF file to open it in Preview.
- In the top menu bar, click View and select Thumbnails. A sidebar will appear on the left showing small previews of your pages.
- Leave that window open and locate the second PDF file you want to add.
- Click and drag the icon of the second PDF file directly from Finder into the Thumbnails sidebar of the first PDF. You can drop it at the end of the list or between specific pages.
- To save your new merged document, go to File > Export as PDF… and give it a new name.
Method 2: Using Quick Actions (Fastest)
If you just want to stick several PDFs together in alphabetical order without looking at them, you can do it straight from Finder.
- Open a Finder window and navigate to the folder containing your PDFs.
- Hold down the Command (⌘) key and click on each PDF file you want to merge to select them all at once.
- Right-click (or Control-click) on one of the highlighted files.
- In the pop-up menu, hover over Quick Actions at the bottom.
- Select Create PDF.
- Your Mac will instantly create a new, combined PDF file in the same folder, usually named after the first file you selected.