Most email providers cap attachments at 25 MB. Most PDFs full of scans, screenshots or product photos blow right past that. Here's how to compress any PDF down to a sendable size without making it look like a fax from 1997.
Why PDFs get so big
Three culprits: high-resolution images, embedded fonts, and uncompressed scans. A 10-page scanned report can easily hit 50 MB. The same content as text-only is under 1 MB.
The 30-second compression workflow
- Open the Compress PDF tool.
- Drop in your PDF.
- Pick a compression level (recommended: medium — best size/quality tradeoff).
- Download the compressed PDF.
Compression levels explained
- Low: ~10–30% smaller. Images stay crisp. Use for archival.
- Medium: ~40–70% smaller. Best balance. Use for email and sharing.
- High: 70%+ smaller. Images are noticeably softer. Use for the web.
When compression won't help much
If your PDF is mostly text, you're already near the floor. Try splitting the file into smaller PDFs instead, or convert to text with our PDF to Text tool.
Tools used in this guide
Every tool referenced above — free, unlimited, no signup.