Compress a PDF for email
If your PDF is too big to attach, upload it below, choose “Recommended” and download the smaller file. Photo-heavy PDFs often shrink to a fraction of their size — no sign-up, and the file never leaves your computer.
Choose files
or drag and dropPDF
Your files never leave your device — everything runs locally in your browser.
How it works
- 1
Upload the PDF
Drop the oversized file into the box above.
- 2
Pick a level
“Recommended” is usually ideal for email. Not enough? Use “Strong”.
- 3
Check the size
The new size in MB is shown, so you see right away whether it fits your limit.
- 4
Attach it
Download the result and attach it to your email.
How large can an email attachment be?
It depends on both sides: even if your mailbox accepts large attachments, the recipient’s server may reject the message. Gmail allows attachments up to 25 MB and Outlook.com up to 20 MB; many company mail servers set lower limits. To be safe, stay under 10 MB.
Also note that attachments are encoded for sending, which makes them roughly a third larger. An 18 MB PDF can already exceed a 20 MB limit.
Which level should you choose?
- Light: lossless — text stays selectable. Good for contracts, forms and text documents.
- Recommended: pages are re-created at about 120 DPI. Hardly visible on screen, usually much smaller.
- Strong: maximum reduction for very large scans when the file only needs to be read on screen.
Still too large?
Split long documents with Split PDF and send attachments in a second email, or remove unneeded pages with Organize PDF.
Tips
- With “Recommended” and “Strong”, pages become images — text is no longer selectable. Try “Light” first for contracts and forms.
- Photo-heavy PDFs shrink the most; text-only PDFs are often small already.
- Several PDFs? Merge them first, then compress.