Free PDF Compressor – Reduce PDF Size
Pick a PDF, choose a compression level and your browser shrinks it instantly. Nothing is uploaded to our server.
or drag & drop it here
Your PDF is processed on your device and never uploaded. Strong and Recommended turn pages into images, so text is no longer selectable. Use Light if you need selectable text.
How to reduce PDF file size
- Choose or drop your PDF file.
- Pick Strong, Recommended or Light compression.
- Click Compress PDF, check the new size and download.
Why are PDFs big and how do they shrink?
Scanned pages and high-resolution photos are what make PDFs heavy. A 10-page phone scan easily reaches 15–30 MB, while 100–300 KB per page is plenty for on-screen reading.
Job portals, universities and government sites often cap uploads at 2, 5 or 10 MB, and Gmail/Outlook attachments stop at 20–25 MB. Strong compression brings scanned documents well below these limits.
Strong and Recommended redraw every page and store it as JPEG. That is very effective on scans (70–95% smaller) but text is no longer selectable. For small text PDFs exported from Word, Light is the better choice.
Everything runs in your browser, so IDs, receipts and contracts never reach a server. The tool never returns a file larger than your original and tells you when compression does not help.
FAQ
How do I compress a PDF under 2 MB?
Choose Strong and click Compress PDF. Scanned documents usually end up far below 2 MB.
Is my PDF uploaded?
No. Compression happens locally in your browser.
Does text stay selectable?
With Light, yes. Strong and Recommended convert pages to images, keeping them readable but not selectable.
Can I compress a password-protected PDF?
No, PDFs with an open password cannot be processed. Remove the password first.
Is it free?
Yes, completely free with no sign-up.