Sign PDFs on Your Mac Without Downloading Anything

Mac users have something Windows, Android, and ChromeOS users don’t: a built-in PDF signing tool that actually works. Preview, which ships with every Mac, can capture your signature and drop it onto a PDF. For a lot of people, it’s genuinely the right tool. That said, Preview has specific limits you’ll bump into once you want more than a drawn signature. There’s no typing option, no way to upload a signature image, and Preview saves every signature you create into the macOS Keychain whether you want it saved or not. Signegy is a browser-based alternative that covers the gaps, running in Safari or Chrome without a download.

Using Mac Preview to Sign PDFs

Preview deserves a proper walkthrough, because for a lot of signing tasks it’s the right choice.

1. Open the PDF in Preview. Double-click the file in Finder, or right-click and choose Open With > Preview if a different app has claimed PDF as the default handler.

2. Open the Markup toolbar. Click the pencil icon near the top-right of the window, or choose View > Show Markup Toolbar. The annotation tools appear.

3. Click the Signature button. It looks like a cursive signature and sits in the Markup toolbar. If you haven’t created a signature yet, Preview prompts you to make one.

4. Create your signature. You get three options. Sign on the trackpad (press down and draw with your finger, and Preview captures the motion). Use an iPhone or iPad via Continuity, where the device shows a signing surface and whatever you draw appears on your Mac. Or hold a signed piece of paper up to the Mac’s camera, and Preview traces the signature from the image.

5. Click to insert, then drag to place it. Pick your signature from the dropdown, click where you want it on the page, and drag to resize and reposition.

Preview’s strengths are real. It’s built in, free, works offline, and the trackpad signing experience is surprisingly good on recent MacBooks with the larger Force Touch trackpads. The Continuity option with an iPhone or iPad is clever, and the results look natural.

Where Preview falls short is worth being direct about. There’s no typed signature option, so every signature has to be drawn or captured, and you can’t get the clean consistency of a typed name in a handwriting font. You can’t upload an existing signature image either. If you have a high-quality scan of your handwritten signature that you use across documents, Preview has no way to accept it. And every signature you create lands in the macOS Keychain, tied to your user account. On a personal Mac that’s usually fine. On a shared Mac or a work laptop, it means other people using your profile can pull your stored signatures.

When to Use Signegy Instead of Preview

Preview handles the common case well, but there are specific situations where something else makes more sense.

You want a typed signature. Preview only supports drawn or captured signatures. If you’d rather type your name and pick a handwriting-style font (which looks consistent every time), Signegy gives you that. Especially useful when you’re signing several documents and want them to match visually.

You’re on a shared or work Mac. Preview saves signatures to the macOS Keychain, scoped to your user profile. On a personal machine, that’s fine. On a shared Mac, or a work laptop managed by your employer, you might not want your signature stored persistently. Signegy saves nothing. Close the tab and there’s no trace left.

You want to upload a signature image. If you’ve got a clean PNG or JPG of your handwritten signature (maybe you scanned it once and reuse it across documents), Signegy lets you upload and place it directly. Preview has no equivalent for that.

You want your document to stay strictly local to the browser. Preview is local to your Mac, which is good. But if you use iCloud Drive and your files sync automatically, your signed PDF ends up on Apple’s servers. Signegy processes everything inside the browser tab. The document is never written to disk until you explicitly download it, and it’s never synced anywhere in between.

You’re on a borrowed Mac. If you’re using a friend’s or colleague’s Mac temporarily and need to sign something, Preview would store your signature in their Keychain, which you probably don’t want. Signegy leaves no footprint on the machine.

How to Sign a PDF on Mac with Signegy

The process is quick in any browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, or Edge).

1. Open signegy.com in your browser. No account creation, no download prompt, nothing to dismiss.

2. Drag your PDF from Finder into the tool. Or click to browse if you’d rather use the file picker. The document loads in your browser and stays there. It’s rendered and modified entirely client-side, with nothing uploaded to a server. The technical details are covered in the browser-based signing overview if you’re curious about the architecture.

3. Add your signature. Draw with your trackpad or mouse. Type your name and choose a handwriting font. Or upload an image of your signature. Position it on the page, resize it to fit, and flip to other pages if the document needs signatures in more than one place.

4. Download the signed PDF. Click download and the file saves through the standard browser save dialog. It’s a regular PDF that opens in Preview, Acrobat, or any other reader.

Preview vs. Signegy Comparison

Feature	Mac Preview	Signegy
Draw signature	Yes (trackpad, iPhone, camera)	Yes (mouse, trackpad, touch)
Type signature	No	Yes (multiple fonts)
Upload signature image	No	Yes
Text/date annotations	Limited	No
Signature storage	Saved to macOS Keychain	Nothing saved
Multi-page navigation	Yes	Yes
Works offline	Yes	After initial load
Account required	No	No
Cost	Free	Free

Both tools are free, and both keep your document local (Preview on disk, Signegy in browser memory). The choice really comes down to whether you need features Preview doesn’t offer: typed signatures, uploaded images, or a signing session that leaves no persistent data behind.

For related guides, see signing without Adobe on Mac, how browser-based signing works under the hood, or the Windows walkthrough if that’s your platform instead. You can also try Signegy now using the tool at the top of this page.