Compress PDF Online Free
Shrink your PDF by 20-90%, depending on the mode you pick and what is inside the file. Upload up to 2 files at once on the free plan.
Drop Your PDFs Here
Drag and drop your PDF files, or click the button below
Why Our PDF Compressor Works Better
Upload a PDF, pick a compression level, and download a smaller file.
Smart Image Compression
We re-encode embedded images, the biggest cause of large PDFs, at a lower quality and resolution.
Up to 90% Smaller
Choose Extreme for the smallest file, or Balanced for a cleaner-looking result.
Encrypted and Deleted
Files are encrypted in transit and automatically deleted from our servers within one hour. We do not read, keep or share them.
Compress in Three Steps
Upload, choose a level, download.
Upload Your PDFs
Select up to 2 PDF files at once on the free plan, each up to 20MB. Drag and drop or click to browse.
Pick a Compression Level
Choose Maximum Quality, Balanced, or Extreme Compression. Balanced is the default for most files.
Download Smaller Files
Most files finish in under 10 seconds. Download your optimized PDF files straight away.
What actually happens when you compress
What compression changes in your PDF, and what it leaves alone.
Why do PDFs get so large in the first place?
Text and vector graphics take up almost no space — the size is almost always driven by embedded images. A PDF exported from a scanner or a phone photo can easily hit tens of megabytes because each page is a full-resolution image, not compressed text.
Lossy vs. lossless — what we actually do
We use lossy compression on embedded images, re-encoding them at a lower quality and resolution, since that's where nearly all the size reduction comes from. Text and vector content are left untouched — they're already compact and compress losslessly by default.
Compressing scanned PDFs vs. text PDFs
A scanned PDF, made entirely of images, compresses dramatically — often 70-90% smaller — because there's a lot of image data to optimize. A PDF that's mostly text with a couple of small images has little left to compress, so the reduction will be modest by comparison.
When compression won't help much
If a PDF's images were already heavily compressed before being embedded, common with PDFs exported from other online tools, there's not much redundancy left to squeeze out. Re-compressing an already-compressed image mostly just adds generation loss without much size benefit.
Does compression affect print quality?
At our standard compression level, the quality loss is meant to be barely visible on screen and in most print output. For documents you plan to print at large sizes or professional quality, it's worth reviewing a page or two before distributing widely.
Compressing multiple PDFs at once
You can upload and compress several PDFs in the same batch — each is compressed independently and returned as its own file. Compression ratio varies per file since it depends on each PDF's own image content, not a fixed percentage applied to everything.
Common Questions
Quick answers on limits, privacy and results.
It depends on what's in the PDF. Files heavy with images can shrink by up to 90%. Text-only documents typically see 20–40% reduction. The Extreme mode gives the smallest file; Balanced keeps quality high.
In Balanced mode, the difference is barely noticeable — text stays crisp and images look clean. Extreme mode does reduce image quality slightly, but it's a big size win if that's what you need.
Yes — the free plan lets you compress up to 2 PDFs at once. Starter and Pro allow up to 10 files per batch. We process them all together and give you a zip file to download when there's more than one.
On the free plan, each file can be up to 20MB (100MB on Starter). If yours is bigger, try splitting it first with our PDF splitter tool, then compress the parts.
Everything is deleted within one hour of processing. Your files are encrypted during the upload and transfer. We don't read them, keep them, or share them.
When You Need to Shrink a PDF
Large PDFs are hard to email and slow to upload. Scanned documents and image-heavy presentations are the usual cause, and the compressor shrinks both with nothing to install.
You choose how aggressive the compression is. Maximum Quality mode (20–40% reduction) keeps everything looking sharp. Balanced (40–70%) is the go-to for most files. Extreme (70–90%) gives you the smallest possible file when size matters more than perfect image quality.
Works With Any PDF
Any PDF works, and scanned documents shrink the most because each page is a full-resolution image. It runs in the browser on desktop, tablet and phone.
Compress Your PDF Now
Free for up to 2 files at a time, 20MB each.