Compress PDF
Lower the file size of your PDF while keeping reasonable quality — great for email.
Upload
Select or drag-and-drop your file.
Adjust
Choose your options — everything happens in your browser.
Download
Save the finished file instantly. No watermarks.
A 40 MB PDF is a problem. Email providers bounce it, job portals reject it, and government upload forms cut you off at 2 MB without explanation. PDFora's compress tool shrinks PDF files right in your browser, and it shows you the before and after size along with the exact percentage saved, so you know immediately whether the file will fit wherever it needs to go.
You get three compression levels. Low keeps quality as close to the original as possible with a modest size cut. Recommended balances size and clarity, and it is the right choice for most documents. Strong squeezes the file as small as it can get, which suits scanned paperwork where a little softness in the image does not matter. Pick one, compress, compare, done.
Everything happens locally. Your PDF is processed by your own browser and never uploaded to a server, which matters when you are compressing contracts, medical records, or bank statements. The tool is free, works without an account, adds no watermarks, and there is no cap on how many files you can run through it in a day.
How to compress a PDF online
- Open the Compress PDF tool on PDFora in any modern browser, on desktop or mobile.
- Drag your PDF onto the drop zone, or click to browse and select it from your device.
- Choose a compression level: Low for best quality, Recommended for a balance, or Strong for the smallest possible file.
- Click Compress and wait a few seconds while your browser re-renders the pages locally.
- Check the results panel, which shows the original size, the new size, and the percentage saved.
- Download the compressed PDF. If it is still too large, run it again with the Strong setting.
When to use this tool
- Shrinking a scanned rental agreement from 25 MB to under 2 MB so a visa or government portal will accept the upload.
- Getting a design portfolio under the 10 MB attachment limit that Gmail and Outlook enforce.
- Reducing a phone-scanned stack of receipts before submitting an expense report through a company system with strict file limits.
- Compressing lecture notes and slide handouts so they download quickly for students on slow mobile connections.
- Cutting down a product catalog before publishing it on a website, so the page loads fast and does not burn visitors' data.
- Making a signed contract small enough to send over WhatsApp without the app refusing the file.
Tips for the best results
- Scanned PDFs shrink the most. Because the tool re-renders each page, a heavy 300-DPI scan can lose 70 to 90 percent of its size, while an already lean text PDF may only drop a little.
- Start with Recommended. Only move to Strong if the result is still over your size limit, and check a page with small print before sending it anywhere official.
- Keep the original file. Compression is one-way, so store the full-quality copy and share the compressed one.
- If you only need a few pages from a big document, split it first, then compress. Fewer pages means a smaller file before compression even starts.
- Compressing on a laptop is usually faster than on a phone for documents over 50 pages, since the work runs on your own hardware.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free to compress a PDF here?
Yes. There is no payment step, no signup, no watermark on the output, and no daily file limit. The tool runs in your browser, so there are no server costs to pass on to you.
Will compressing my PDF reduce the quality?
Some quality loss is the point of compression, but how much depends on the level you pick. Low is close to indistinguishable from the original, Recommended looks clean for reading and printing, and Strong trades visible sharpness for the smallest file.
Can I still select and copy text after compressing?
No, and this is the honest tradeoff. The tool re-renders every page as an image to achieve deep size reduction, so selectable text becomes part of the page image. If you need the text to stay selectable, keep the original alongside the compressed copy.
How much smaller will my file get?
It varies with the content. Scanned documents and image-heavy files often shrink by 60 to 90 percent, while PDFs that are mostly plain text see smaller gains. The results screen shows your exact percentage saved before you download.
Is my document uploaded to your servers?
No. The entire compression runs inside your browser using your device's own processor. The file never leaves your computer or phone, which makes the tool safe for confidential contracts, ID scans, and financial paperwork.
Is there a maximum file size?
There is no hard limit set by us, since your own device does the work. Very large files, say several hundred megabytes, depend on your available memory. Most PDFs up to 100 MB compress without trouble on an average laptop.