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Compress PDF
Reduce a PDF's file size — free, unlimited and private. Keep every word selectable with the lossless rebuild, or shrink scans hard with image mode and target sizes down to 200 KB. Your file never leaves your device.
- 100% free, no sign-up
- No watermark
- Files never uploaded
- Targets down to 200 KB
Drag & drop your PDF here
or click to browse — one PDF at a time
Choose a PDF filePrivate by design: compression runs 100% in your browser. Your file is never uploaded to a server — nothing leaves this device.
How should we shrink it?
Balanced keeps pages crisp for reading and printing. Small and Extreme trade some sharpness for a much smaller file.
With a target set, the tool keeps stepping the settings down until the file fits — or reaches its smallest settings and tells you the smallest size it could reach.
Compressing…
How to compress a PDF
Three steps, no accounts and no software to install. This free PDF size reducer works the same on a laptop, tablet or phone.
Add your PDF
Drag and drop your file into the box above, or click to browse. The tool reads it on your device and shows its size and page count, so you know what you're starting from.
Pick a mode
Lossless rebuilds the file without touching quality — text stays selectable. Image mode shrinks scans and photo PDFs far harder, with levels and target sizes down to 200 KB.
Download the smaller PDF
Press Compress PDF. You'll see the before and after sizes side by side — and if the result isn't smaller, the tool says so instead of pretending.
Two ways to shrink a PDF — honestly explained
There is no single "best" way to compress a PDF. There are two honest trade-offs, and this tool lets you choose.
Lossless Text stays selectable
The document is rebuilt from scratch: every page is copied into a fresh file, objects nothing references are dropped, the previous owner's metadata is stripped, and everything is saved using compact object streams.
Nothing about the pages themselves changes — text stays text, images keep their quality, links keep working. What you save is whatever structural bloat the original file was carrying. On a file that was already built efficiently, that can be very little — and that's fine, the result panel shows you the real number either way.
Image mode Strongest reduction
Each page is rendered as a picture and stored as a JPEG. Scanners are the big win here: a scanned page saved as an uncompressed or lightly compressed image can shrink by 50–90% and still read perfectly.
The price is real, so we state it up front: the text becomes part of the picture — not selectable, not searchable, and links no longer click. Three levels (Balanced 150 DPI, Small 120 DPI, Extreme 96 DPI), an optional grayscale pass, and target sizes let you aim at exactly what an upload form demands.
Why compress PDFs with All Tools Max?
Most online PDF compressors upload your documents to their servers, cap your free files, or stamp the result. This one doesn't — and won't.
Completely free & unlimited
Compress as many PDFs as you want, as often as you want. No daily caps, no file-size limits for "free users", no pro version hiding the good settings.
Private — file never uploaded
The compression happens on your own device with JavaScript. Contracts, payslips, ID scans and medical letters stay exactly where they belong: with you.
Honest results, every time
Before and after sizes are shown side by side. If a file barely shrinks — or a mode makes it bigger — the tool says so plainly and tells you what to do instead.
No sign-up, ever
No email address, no account, no newsletter trap. Open the page, shrink your PDF, download, done.
Common reasons to reduce a PDF's size
- Beat an email attachment limit — Gmail and most mail apps cap attachments around 25 MB, and many office inboxes reject far smaller files. A quick compress gets your document through.
- Job portals with 2 MB uploads — application sites routinely demand a resume or certificate "under 2 MB" (some ask for 200 KB). Set that as the target size and let the tool work down to it.
- WhatsApp sharing — big PDFs crawl on slow connections and eat mobile data. A shrunken copy sends fast and opens fast on the other side.
- Form submissions with size caps — visa, university and government forms often reject anything over 500 KB or 1 MB. Compress to just under the cap and submit without the error message.
- Scanned documents — a scanner's default settings can turn ten pages into 30 MB. Image mode with grayscale brings that down to email-friendly size.
- Phone storage — a folder of smaller PDFs syncs faster to cloud storage and leaves room on the device.
Tips for the smallest, cleanest result
- Text matters? Use Lossless. Contracts, resumes and anything you'll copy text from should stay in Lossless mode — the words remain real text, and quality is untouched.
- Scans love Image mode. If the PDF came from a scanner or a phone scanning app, Image mode is where the big savings are — Balanced is the sweet spot for readability.
- Aiming at a portal? Use a target size. Pick "Under 2 MB", "Under 500 KB" or "Under 200 KB" and the tool steps its settings down until the file fits, instead of you guessing levels.
- Add grayscale for text scans. Black-and-white pages compress noticeably further than colour ones, and a text scan loses nothing by dropping colour.
- Already-optimized files barely shrink. A PDF exported fresh from Word or Google Docs is usually lean. If Lossless saves almost nothing, that's the file telling you it was already fine.
- Bigger result? Keep the original. If Image mode makes a small text PDF bigger, the tool will warn you — that's the sign the original was already efficient. There's no prize for a larger file; keep the smaller one.
Compress PDF — frequently asked questions
Is this Compress PDF tool really free?
Yes. Compress as many PDFs as you like, as often as you like — no sign-up, no watermark, no trial limits and no file-size caps. The tool is completely free.
Is my PDF file uploaded to a server?
No. Compression happens entirely in your browser using JavaScript. Your file never leaves your device, nothing is sent to or stored on a server, and closing the tab removes everything.
Will compressing reduce the quality of my PDF?
Lossless mode never changes quality — pages, text and images stay exactly as they are, only the file structure is rebuilt. Image mode rebuilds each page as a JPEG picture, so pages look the same at reading distance but text is no longer selectable, and very fine detail softens at the smaller levels. Use Lossless when the document itself matters, Image mode when size matters most.
Why did my PDF barely shrink — or get bigger?
Most PDFs made by Word, Google Docs or a modern scanner app are already efficiently built, so there is little left to remove — a browser-based compressor can only save so much on them. Image mode can even make a small text PDF bigger, because a page of text stored as a picture takes more space than the text itself. When that happens the tool tells you plainly and suggests keeping your original or using Lossless mode. Scanned and photo-heavy PDFs are where the big savings live.
Can you compress my PDF to 200 KB?
Usually, yes. Pick a target size (under 2 MB, 1 MB, 500 KB or 200 KB) in Image mode and the tool keeps stepping the settings down until the result fits — or reaches the smallest settings it has. If a target genuinely can't be reached, for example a 200-page colour scan squeezed to 200 KB, the tool says so honestly and shows you the smallest size it could reach instead of pretending.
Can I compress a PDF on my phone?
Yes. The tool works in any modern mobile browser. Tap the drop zone to pick your PDF, choose a mode, and tap Compress PDF — the smaller file downloads to your device. Very large PDFs may take a little longer on an older phone, because all the work happens on the device itself.