Make your PDF smaller without losing quality.
The usual reason you are here is an upload that bounced — an email attachment over the limit, a portal that caps files at 5 or 10 MB, or a form that simply will not accept your document. Compressing the PDF fixes that in seconds. How much smaller it gets depends almost entirely on what is inside, which is worth understanding before you decide a file 'won't compress'.
Drag & drop your file here
or click to browse
PDF files only · Max 100MB
Drop your PDF onto the upload area. It is processed in your browser and never sent to a server.
Pick a compression level. Balanced is right for email and most uploads; choose High when you need to get under a hard size cap and the file is only going to be read on screen.
Download the compressed PDF. If it is still too large, run it again at a higher level, or split it and send in parts.
Image-heavy and text-heavy PDFs behave completely differently
A brochure or photo-filled deck can drop 60–80% because the images are where the weight is. A plain text contract may only shrink 10–20% — there is little to compress once the text is stored. If your 'mostly text' PDF barely changes, that is expected, not a failure.
Scanned documents are really images
A scanned contract is a stack of photographs, not text. It compresses like an image — which is good news for size, but pushing compression too hard can make small print blurry. Use Balanced first and only go higher if you check the result is still readable.
There is a floor you cannot go below
If a PDF was already exported with low-resolution images, the heavy lifting was done before you got here and a second pass frees almost nothing. Repeatedly compressing an already-small file wastes time rather than shrinking it further.
Compression is separate from page count
If a single huge PDF still will not fit after compressing, splitting it into two files is often faster than chasing a smaller size — each half goes under the limit on its own.
Private by default
Client-side tools never upload your files. Server-side tools delete them immediately after processing.
No account needed
Just upload and go. No email, no password, no account — ever.
Works on any device
Fully browser-based. Works on desktop, tablet, and mobile with nothing to install.
Most PDFs compress by 20–80% depending on their content. Image-heavy PDFs compress the most. Text-only PDFs may compress less but will still see some reduction.
Reduce PDF file size instantly — no signup required, no file limits, no waiting. Perfect for email attachments, upload portals, and faster sharing. All processing happens in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to our servers.
Looking for a Smallpdf alternative? See how Criply compares →