Compress a PDF
Reduce a PDF's size to email it or upload it to a website: lighter images, text intact. The file stays on your device.
- Free
- No sign-up
- No file uploaded
- Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone
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About this tool
Is your PDF too large for an email or a form limited to 2 or 5 MB? Choose a compression level: the document's images are recompressed and resized, while text stays sharp and selectable. Everything happens in your browser, with no upload.
When to use it
Emailing a file
Email services often reject attachments over 20 to 25 MB, and many recipients set lower limits. A rental or job application scanned in colour easily goes from 30 MB to 3 MB.
Meeting an online form's limit
Government sites, universities and job portals often allow 2, 5 or 10 MB per file. The “Strong” level helps you get under these limits without recreating the document.
Saving space
Invoices, statements or manuals take less room once their images are lighter, on your computer and in your cloud storage.
How to use
- Choose the compression level.
- Drop your PDF.
- Download the lighter version.
How it works
In most large PDFs, images are what weigh the most: photos, scanned pages, high-resolution illustrations. The tool finds them in the file, decodes them, resizes them if they exceed the chosen size and saves them again as JPEG at the selected level's quality. An image is only replaced if the new version is clearly lighter.
Text, fonts and vector drawings are untouched: they stay sharp at any zoom and the text remains selectable and searchable. Uncompressed parts of the file are compressed along the way, and the structure is rewritten compactly. If the result is not smaller than the original, the original is returned to you.
Tips for best results
- Start with the “Recommended” level: it suits email and forms with no visible loss on screen.
- Keep the original for printing or archiving: image compression is permanent.
- For a scanned document, scanning at 150 or 200 dpi instead of 600 gives a much lighter file from the start.
- A text-only PDF is already light: compression gains little.
- To combine and shrink several documents at once, use “Merge PDFs” with the compression option.
Common problems and fixes
The file barely shrank
It mostly contains text, fonts or vector drawings, which are already compact, or its images use a format the tool leaves untouched (print CMYK). Try the “Strong” level.
Images look a little blurry
The chosen level reduces their resolution too much for your use. Start again with the “Light” level.
“This PDF is password-protected”
Open it with its password in your PDF reader, save an unprotected copy, then compress that copy.
Frequently asked questions
Is my PDF sent to a server?
No. Compression is done by your browser; the file never leaves your device, which suits confidential documents.
Does the text stay selectable?
Yes. Only images are recompressed; text, links and layout are kept.
How much smaller will the file be?
It depends on its content: a scanned or photo-heavy document often loses 50 to 90% of its size, a text document very little.
Is there a watermark or a limit?
No: no watermark, no account and no size limit other than your device's memory.
Related searches
Still stuck?
Ask on the forum: the category, the tool, your device sheet and the test result will be filled in for you.