Can I scan downloaded PDF files?

[anotherme]

Sometimes, I have to download PDFs from people I don't know personally on my Mac.

Will Malwarebytes automatically scan and warn me of any malware within the PDFs?

Is there a way for me to scan only the PDF before and after I download it to my Mac?

[David H. Lipman]

Submit the file to Virus total for a Report.

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload

It will give you an indication if it is malicious or not.

Example:     https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/c63687e8aaa9c40db79663ab9ae9d375e701e1b38219c4522655c3b19ab41b31/detection

 

[treed]

There is currently no known malware capable of infecting a Mac via a PDF. There have been vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat Reader in the past that could be used for installing malware, but those were never exploited to drop Mac malware to my knowledge. It's especially a non-issue if you are using Preview to view PDFs on your Mac.

If you're curious whether it might contain Windows malware, I'd recommend David's suggestion. Malwarebytes for Mac does not detect Windows malware.