Compress PDF

On-device · no upload

Make a PDF smaller without wrecking the text or the images. Files are processed in your browser — nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored.

Drop PDFs here

Up to 100 MB per file · up to 30 files at once

Compression level

Light

~20% smaller

Barely touched. Safe for print and legal filing.

Balanced

~70% smaller

Screen-quality images, text untouched. Recommended.

Extreme

~85% smaller

Smallest possible file. Images will look soft.

Advanced▾

Add a file to start. The button stays put so it never jumps under your cursor.

How to compress a PDF

Drop your PDFs onto the box above, or pick them from your disk. Nothing uploads — the browser just reads the bytes.

Choose a compression level. Balanced is right for almost everything; Light keeps print quality, Extreme goes as small as the format allows.

Press Compress. Each file is processed on your device, one after another, and you see the before-and-after size for every one.

Download the files individually or all at once as a zip. Close the tab and every trace is gone.

Questions

Is compressing a PDF here really private?

Yes. The compression runs in your browser using WebAssembly — the file is read from your disk into this tab and never sent over the network. You can confirm it by opening your browser’s network panel while a job runs.

Will the text stay searchable?

Always. Only images are re-encoded; the text layer, links, bookmarks and form fields are copied through untouched. A compressed file is still selectable, searchable and screen-reader accessible.

Is there a file size limit?

100 MB per file, and 30 files per batch. The ceiling comes from your device’s memory rather than a paid tier — on a desktop machine you can usually go well past it, and the tool will tell you if a file is too big to hold.

Why is my compressed file barely smaller?

It was probably already efficient — a text-only PDF has almost nothing to strip. When that happens we show the real numbers rather than pretending, and leave you with the original.

Can I compress a password-protected PDF?

Not directly yet. If a file is password-protected the tool will tell you and offer to skip it — remove the password with your PDF reader first, then compress the unlocked copy. We won't send a password anywhere to check it; that limit is honest rather than hidden.

Do I need an account?

No. There is no sign-up, no email, and no usage cap. Nothing about your files is logged.

About compressing PDFs

A PDF is usually large because of what's inside it, not because of the format. Scanned pages hold full-resolution photographs of paper; exported decks carry the original artwork behind every cropped image. Compression works by re-encoding those images at a resolution that still looks right on screen, and by discarding data no reader needs — duplicate fonts, unused objects, revision history.

Text is left alone. Words stay selectable and searchable at every level here, so a compressed contract is still a contract you can copy from. If a file is mostly text and already small, this tool will tell you so rather than shaving off a pointless 2%. Everything runs in your browser. Your file is never uploaded, never queued on a server, and never deleted from one — because it was never there.

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