Compress PDF Files Online

That 40MB scan is not going to email itself. Pick a level, download a smaller file, no account, deleted within an hour.

Compress PDF

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Only PDF files are supported for compression

PDF Compression: Reduce PDF file size while maintaining quality. Choose from low, medium, or high compression levels.
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Drag & drop PDF files above or use the upload button

Compression Levels:
  • Low: Fast compression with minimal size reduction (~10-20%)
  • Medium: Balanced compression with good size reduction (~30-50%)
  • High: Maximum compression with best size reduction (~50-70%)
Note: Higher compression levels may take longer to process. The compressed PDF maintains the same visual quality as the original.

Shrinking a PDF without wrecking it

Pick a level

  • Low: A quick, gentle pass that shaves off roughly 10–20%. Perfect if your file is already pretty lean.
  • Medium: The best place to start. It usually cuts file size by 30–50% without making your document look any different on screen.
  • High: Built for massive, image-heavy scans when you're desperate to sneak under an email limit. Photos will look a bit softer.

Don't worry about your layout breaking—your fonts, formatting, and text layers stay exactly where they belong. The tool simply targets the heavy, unoptimized image data crowding the background.

A few honest things to know before you upload

The biggest factor in your final file size is how your PDF was built in the first place. Scanned documents are essentially just a heavy stack of embedded photos, meaning we can often cut their size in half or more—a bulky 40MB scan of a 10-page contract can easily drop under 8MB on High compression. On the flip side, if you upload a 2MB file exported straight from Microsoft Word, it's likely already highly optimized. Don't expect dramatic drops there; there's just no extra weight to trim out of a text-only file.

There are two quick gotchas to keep in mind. First, if your PDF is password-protected, you'll need to unlock it before dropping it here; our system can't restructure a file it isn't allowed to read. Second, if your document uses highly unusual specialty typefaces, extreme compression can occasionally strip out that font data. This is rarely a problem for everyday office work, but it might matter if you are sending files to a commercial print shop.

As for your privacy: your files are processed in an isolated session folder on our server, seen by absolutely nobody, and permanently deleted within an hour whether you close the tab or not. If you are handling sensitive paperwork like a tax return or a signed agreement, we want you to feel safe using the tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

For almost every document, you won't notice a difference on screen. Text data is tiny, so our compressor leaves it perfectly crisp. The only real shift happens to images on the higher settings—embedded photos are downsampled, which means they might look a little softer if you zoom in close. For a scanned application or a signed lease that someone just needs to read on their phone, the trade-off is completely worth it. If you're uploading a premium layout meant for high-res printing, stick to Low or leave it as-is.

It entirely depends on what's inside the file. A high-res scanned document is basically a massive collection of images, so it can easily shed 50–70% of its bulk without losing legibility—a 30MB passport scan packet can routinely drop under 6MB. Conversely, a 1.5MB digital export from Word is already lean, so you might only shave off 10–20%. The tool can't compress data that isn't there to begin with. If the file barely budges, your original was already perfectly optimized.

Not right away—you'll need to remove the password first. The tool needs to analyze and rewrite the file's internal layout, which is impossible on an encrypted document. Once you run the unlocked file through the compressor, you can always lock it down again using our Protect PDF tool.

Yes, your text layer stays completely untouched. Compression changes how images and background data are handled, but leaves the actual characters alone. You can search, highlight, and copy text exactly like before. The only exception is if your original file was a raw scan with no OCR layer, meaning the text wasn't searchable in the first place.

Medium is your safest bet for everyday office files. It noticeably shrinks the document while maintaining sharp visuals, and it processes incredibly fast. High compression is worth a shot if you are right up against a hard attachment limit (most email providers cap files at 25MB) and Medium didn't quite get you there. Just give the downloaded file a quick visual check before hitting send to make sure any images are still readable.

Yes, you can drop a batch of PDFs into a single session. The tool will apply your chosen settings to each one and give them back as individual compressed files, not a single merged document. If you want to combine them into one file afterward, just run them through our Merge PDF tool.

We process everything locally on our secure server without passing your data to third parties, and our system wipes the files entirely within an hour. For standard business contracts or tax documents you're about to email anyway, the risk profile is incredibly low. That said, if you are handling top-secret legal paperwork or classified records, an offline desktop program is always the most secure route.