Make a PDF smaller for email and upload limits
Gmail sends up to 25 MB of attachments from a personal account and turns anything larger into a Drive link, and upload portals often allow far less. Choose Strong below, add the PDF, and the list shows whether it now fits.
Drop your PDFs here
or browse your files
PDF files. As many as you like, no sign-up.
Nothing is uploaded. Files that get smaller also lose their author, software and other hidden details.
- No ads
- No sign-up
- No watermark
- No daily limit
- Nothing uploaded
Several steps, or a whole batch? Chain this with other tools in a Workflow and run them in one go.
Pick a level, not a size
There is no box for a target size, because only the pictures in a PDF can be made smaller on request; text and drawings are already about as small as they get. Try Strong first. If the result fits with plenty of room, run it again at Recommended for sharper pictures.
Will yours fit?
In our tests, PDFs of photos and scans came out at about 8% of their size on Strong: a 4.83 MB photo PDF became about 400 KB. Five of our six text-heavy PDFs, from a one-page memo to a 48-page report, kept about two-thirds of their size or more at every level, because there is little in them to squeeze. If yours is mostly text, compressing won’t get it much further.
Still too big
Send fewer pages. Split out the pages that are needed, and check which ones carry pictures: in our test five pages with a cover photo came to 509 KB, and five pages of plain text from the same report to 137 KB.
Strong and small print
Strong keeps pictures at 100 dots per inch. A scanned letter stays easy to read at that, with a faint fuzz around each letter. For a signed contract or a form with small print, Recommended is safer.
Your files stay with you
Your PDFs are opened and saved on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and you don’t need an account. Close the tab and they’re gone.
From our tests
- How much a PDF really shrinks, and when the level matters
Photos and scans shrink by up to 92%; text reports barely move, whatever level you pick.
- What survives when you merge, split or delete PDF pages
Which page tools keep bookmarks, links, forms and tags, and the hidden-page bug we fixed.
More PDF tools
- Compress PDFShrink scans and photo-heavy PDFs for email and upload forms.
- Merge PDFCombine several PDFs into one, in the order you choose.
- Split PDFEvery page as its own file, or split by page ranges.
- Organize PDFReorder, turn and remove pages, then save.
- Rotate PDFTurn sideways or upside-down pages the right way up.
- Delete PDF pagesRemove blank, duplicate or private pages.
- JPG to PDFTurn photos and scans into one PDF.
- PDF to JPGSave every page of a PDF as a picture.
- PDF to PNGCrisp page images for text, charts and diagrams.
- PDF to textCopy out all the text of a PDF as a .txt file.
- Remove PDF metadataSee and remove author, software and dates hidden in a PDF.
- Add page numbersNumber the pages of a PDF, top or bottom.
- Add watermark to PDFStamp DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL or a logo on every page or a few.
- Password-protect PDFLock a PDF with a password, AES-256 encrypted.
- Unlock PDFRemove a password you know from a PDF.
- Redact PDFBlack out text for real: nothing left under the box.
- Fill PDF formType into a fillable PDF form and save it, optionally flattened.
- Flatten PDFTurn filled form fields into plain page content.
- Sign PDFDraw, type or upload your signature and place it on any page.
- PDF metadata viewerSee the author, apps, dates, fonts and scripts a PDF carries.
- Extract images from PDFSave the pictures inside a PDF at the quality they are stored.
- Crop PDFTrim margins or keep one part of a page.
- Change PDF page sizeFit pages onto A4, Letter, Legal, A3 or A5.
- Grayscale PDFTurn every colour in a PDF grey, with text kept as text.