Compress PDF
Get a scan under an email attachment limit or a portal’s upload cap. Each page is re-rendered as an optimised image at a quality level you pick, which can cut image-heavy PDFs to a fraction of their size — and the before/after sizes are shown so you can judge the trade-off before downloading. Compression runs on your device; the document itself goes nowhere.
🔒 100% private — this tool runs in your browser; files are never uploaded.
How it works
- Add your PDF. Drop the oversized PDF onto the page — scans and photo-heavy documents benefit most.
- Pick a quality level. Choose High, Balanced, or Strong compression. Stronger settings produce smaller files with softer image quality.
- Compress and download. Click Compress. Each page is re-rendered and re-packed in your browser, and you see the before/after size before downloading.
Honest limitations
- Output pages are images — text becomes non-selectable and non-searchable.
- Text-only PDFs may not shrink (the tool tells you instead of silently delivering a bigger file).
- Encrypted PDFs must be unlocked first.
Frequently asked questions
How does the compression work?
Each page is re-rendered as an optimised JPEG image and re-packed into a new PDF. That is why it works so well on scans — and why text in the output is no longer selectable. If you need selectable text, keep the original alongside the compressed copy.
Will it always make my PDF smaller?
No — and we show you the before/after size instead of pretending. Text-only PDFs are already compact and can even get bigger when rasterised; the tool warns you when the result is not smaller.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Rendering and re-packing are done by your own browser. A side effect worth knowing: compression speed depends on your device, not on our servers — a long PDF on an old phone will take longer than on a laptop.
More free tools
- Merge PDF — Combine several PDFs into one file, in the order you choose.
- Split PDF — Extract pages or page ranges from a PDF into a new file.
- JPG to PDF — Turn JPG and PNG images into a single PDF document.
- PDF to JPG — Turn each page of a PDF into a downloadable image.
- Rotate PDF — Rotate the pages of a PDF and save the result.
- Delete PDF Pages — Remove unwanted pages from a PDF and keep the rest.
- CSV to Chart — Paste or drop a CSV and get a clean, downloadable chart.
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