Compress PDF to 5MB
Or 2MB, 10MB, 25MB — tell it the limit your email or form allows, and it does the rest.
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Text becomes a picture.
To hit an exact size, every page is turned into a picture. You won’t be able to select or search the text, and links will stop working. If your file is mostly typed text, use Compress PDF and pick Gentle instead.
or drag them here
One PDF file
Your files stay on your device
How to use it
Drop your PDF here and enter a size limit, like 5MB. It shrinks the file to fit under it, ready to email or upload. Your file stays on your device.
Gmail stops at 25MB, work email often at 10MB, and many job sites and government forms at 2MB or 5MB. If you know the limit, just type it in.
Drop your PDF onto the box above, pick a preset like 5 MB or type your own number, and click Compress. It tries a few settings on the first page, then shrinks the whole document to fit.
One thing to know first: to reach an exact size, every page is turned into a picture. The PDF will look the same, but you won’t be able to select or search the text, and links will stop working. If your PDF is mostly typed text, the gentle option in Compress PDF keeps all of that and may be enough.
If the result still comes out too big, the tool tells you. Just lower the limit a little and try again.
Compress PDF to 5MB
The limit people hit most: job sites, university uploads, visa and government forms, and insurance claims often stop at 5MB. Press the 5 MB preset and you’re set.
A typed document of twenty pages or so usually gets under 5MB with almost no visible change. A phone-scanned forty-page contract is harder — it can start at 80MB, and getting it to 5MB makes it a little soft when printed, though still easy to read on screen.
Compress PDF to 10MB
A common limit for work email. It’s a much easier target than 5MB: most scans get there with only a small drop in sharpness, and documents with pictures usually look just the same.
Compress PDF to 2MB
Older web forms and some government sites still stop at 2MB, which is tough for anything scanned. Small print can get fuzzy and a signature can look blurry.
If it won’t fit at a size you can still read, send fewer pages instead. Use Split PDF to keep only the pages the form actually asks for — they’ll stay sharp.
Compress PDF to 25MB for Gmail
Gmail won’t attach anything over 25MB and offers a Drive link instead — fine for a friend, not great for a form or someone who won’t click unknown links. Compressing to 25MB keeps it a real attachment.
Most documents reach 25MB with a barely noticeable change. If your file is already under 25MB, there’s no need to run this at all.
FAQ
How do I get a PDF under 5MB to email it?
Drop the file in, press the 5 MB preset, and click Compress. The tool shrinks the pages until the whole document fits.
Why can’t I select the text afterwards?
To hit an exact size, each page becomes a picture, and pictures don’t contain selectable text.
How is this different from Compress PDF?
Compress PDF also has a gentle option that keeps the text selectable, and lets you pick the settings yourself. This tool aims for the size you name.
The result came out over my limit. Why?
Settings are tested on the first page. If later pages are heavier, like scans after a plain cover page, it can overshoot. Lower the limit and try again.
Can anyone else see my document?
No. Your PDF is shrunk on your own device and never sent anywhere.
How it worksFor the curious
Getting a PDF to a specific size in a browser means rasterising it: every page is re-rendered as a JPEG and the document is rebuilt around those images. The text becomes part of a picture, so it cannot be searched or selected, screen readers cannot read it, and links stop working. The alternative, a lossless re-save, has no dial to turn — it produces whatever size it produces.
Settings are found on page 1 only. The page is rendered at descending resolutions, and at each one the JPEG quality is narrowed by binary search until the projected whole-document size fits your target. Compressing the entire document once per candidate would mean rasterising a forty-page file twenty times over.
Because page 1 stands in for the whole document, the number shown during the search is a projection. The real full-document pass runs straight afterwards and the size shown at the end is the actual file. If page 1 was unrepresentative — a plain text cover in front of dense scans — the result can land over target, and the tool says so.
A browser cannot recompress the images inside a PDF while leaving its text layer intact; that needs a content-stream rewrite the available libraries do not support. That is why this tool only rasterises.