PDF Compressor

Reduce PDF file size while maintaining quality

Compress PDF Files Online

Large PDFs are slow to email, awkward to upload and heavy on storage. Our PDF compressor reduces file size directly in your browser, so your documents never leave your device. It is ideal for shrinking scanned forms, image-heavy brochures and reports so they slip under email and portal size limits.

How to compress a PDF

  1. Select your PDF file.
  2. Let the tool process it locally in your browser.
  3. Download the smaller version.

How the compression works

Most of a PDF's weight comes from images, especially high-resolution scans and photos. This tool re-renders each page as an image at the quality you choose and rebuilds the PDF, which can dramatically shrink scanned and image-heavy documents. Because the pages become images, text in the result is no longer selectable, so it works best on scans and photo-based PDFs rather than plain text documents.

When to compress

Email services often reject attachments larger than 20 to 25 MB. Government and job portals frequently cap uploads at a few megabytes. Smaller PDFs also load faster on the web and take less space in cloud storage. Compressing before you send saves bounced emails and failed uploads.

Privacy first

Because the work happens in your browser, sensitive documents such as contracts, tax forms and medical records are never transmitted to a server. There is nothing to delete afterwards and no account to create. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.

Frequently asked questions

Is PDF compression free?

Yes, it is free with no file count limits and no signup.

Does the text stay selectable?

No. The tool re-renders each page as an image, so text in the compressed file is no longer selectable. This is why it works best on scanned or image-heavy PDFs rather than text documents.

Which PDFs does this work best on?

Scanned documents and image-heavy PDFs shrink the most. Text-only PDFs are usually already small and may not get smaller.

Are my files uploaded to a server?

No. Compression runs entirely in your browser, so your PDF never leaves your device.

Why should I compress a PDF?

Smaller PDFs are easier to email, faster to upload, quicker to load online and lighter to store.