Compress PDF
Make a PDF smaller by re-compressing the photos inside it, while text and vector graphics stay untouched and sharp.
Your PDF is processed on your device. It is never uploaded to any server.
Best trade-off for most documents — photos capped at 2000px.
No PDF added yet.
- 100% in your browser
- No file uploads
- Free and unlimited
How to compress a PDF
Add your PDF
Drag your document into the box above, or click to choose it from your device.
Pick a compression level
Light keeps full resolution, Balanced suits most documents, and Maximum produces the smallest file.
Download the result
You will see the real before and after size. If nothing could be saved, we say so instead of handing you the same file back.
Why use this compressor
Text stays text
We never flatten pages into images, so your document stays selectable, searchable and crisp at any zoom.
You see the real numbers
Every run reports the exact before and after size and how many images were re-compressed.
Truly private
Contracts, invoices and medical records are compressed on your own device and never uploaded.
What makes a PDF so large?
In almost every oversized PDF the weight is in the pictures. A page of text is a few kilobytes, but a single photo from a modern phone can be several megabytes — so a scanned contract or a report full of screenshots balloons quickly.
That is why this tool goes after the images specifically. It finds the photos embedded in your document, re-encodes them at a sensible resolution and quality, and writes them back, leaving the fonts, the text and the vector drawings exactly as they were.
Why compress a PDF?
Attachment limits are the usual reason. Most mail servers reject anything over 20 or 25 MB, and government portals, job applications and university systems often cap uploads far lower than that. Compressing gets you under the limit without splitting the document up.
It also makes documents easier to live with: faster to open on a phone, quicker to share over a slow connection, and lighter on storage when you archive years of invoices or statements.
What this tool will and will not do
It will shrink documents that contain photographs or scans — often dramatically, and always without touching the text layer. That covers the great majority of PDFs that are too big to send.
It will not work miracles on a text-only PDF. If your document has no photos in it, there is very little to remove, and we tell you that plainly rather than returning a file that is the same size or larger while claiming success.
Other ways to reduce PDF size
Depending on how the file was made, these approaches can help too.
Windows
- Open the PDF and choose Print.
- Select “Microsoft Print to PDF” as the printer.
- Print to a new file — this often drops embedded extras.
Mac
- Open the PDF in Preview.
- Choose File, then Export.
- Pick the “Reduce File Size” Quartz filter and save.
Any device
- Scan documents in black and white rather than colour.
- Scan at 200–300 dpi instead of the maximum setting.
- Remove pages you do not need before sharing.