Compress PDF
No uploadChoose quality or maximum savings. Processing stays entirely in your browser.
Drop a PDF here or click to select
Your document never leaves this device
About this tool
PDF compression reduces file size so a document fits an email attachment limit or upload form. Choose Lossless to optimize the original structure, Balanced for readable scans and photos, or Smallest file when stronger reduction matters most.
Lossless preserves selectable text, links, forms and original images. Balanced and Smallest file rebuild pages as compressed images, which usually saves more on scans but flattens interactive content; the tool shows this trade-off before processing.
Everything happens in your browser. Contracts, invoices, medical reports and ID scans are exactly the documents people compress most often, and they are also the ones you should never upload to an unknown server.
How to compress a PDF
- 1Drop your PDF onto the upload area, or click it to pick a file. Nothing is uploaded — the file is opened by your browser.
- 2Choose Lossless to preserve selectable text and original image quality, Balanced for everyday scans, or Smallest file for stronger reduction, then click Compress.
- 3Compare the before and after sizes shown on screen to see how much was saved.
- 4Download the compressed PDF. If the saving was minimal, your file is probably image-heavy — see the FAQ below.
What this tool does
Three compression modes
Pick lossless structural optimization or two image-based modes tuned for balanced quality and the smallest practical output.
No file size limit
Because there is no upload, there is no 10 or 25 MB cap like most online compressors impose. The only limit is your device's memory.
Honest before/after numbers
You see the exact original size, the new size and the percentage saved. If a file cannot be compressed further, the tool says so instead of pretending.
Completely private
The document never leaves your device, so confidential contracts and personal records stay confidential. The tool even works offline once loaded.
Frequently asked questions
How much smaller will my PDF get?
It depends on the mode and content. Lossless mode usually saves most on exported documents; Balanced and Smallest file can substantially reduce scans and photo-heavy PDFs by re-encoding each page.
Does compressing reduce the quality of my PDF?
Lossless mode preserves text, fonts, vectors and original images. Balanced and Smallest file trade some image quality for stronger savings and flatten selectable text, links and form fields; the tool warns you before processing.
My file barely got smaller. Why?
Your PDF is almost certainly image-heavy — typically a scan, where each page is a large photo. Reducing that requires downsampling the images, which lowers visual quality. A practical workaround: convert the pages to images, compress those, then rebuild the PDF using our PDF to Image and Image to PDF tools.
Is there a maximum file size?
No artificial limit. Most online compressors cap uploads at 10–25 MB because they pay for bandwidth; here the work happens on your own device, so a 200 MB PDF is fine as long as your browser has the memory for it.
Is my PDF uploaded to a server?
No. The file is read and rewritten entirely inside your browser using JavaScript. Nothing is transmitted, logged or stored — you can verify it by opening your browser's network tab while compressing, or by disconnecting from the internet after the page has loaded.
Can it compress password-protected PDFs?
No. Encrypted PDFs cannot be read without the password, so you will need to remove the protection first using the application that created the file.