How to compress a PDF so it fits in an email

Gmail caps attachments at 25 MB, Outlook at 20 MB. A few high-res scanned pages blow past that fast. Here's how to shrink a PDF below the limit for free — without uploading your document to some random website.

Why PDFs get so big

The usual culprit is images: scanned documents and photo-heavy PDFs store every page as a high-resolution picture. Compressing those images is where the savings come from.

Compress a PDF in 3 steps

  1. Open the QuickPDF Compress tool.
  2. Drop your PDF and pick a quality level — Balanced is the sweet spot; Tiny for maximum shrink.
  3. Click Process. The compressed file downloads instantly, and your original never left your device.

How small can it go?

Scanned and image-heavy PDFs typically drop 50–80%. Text-only PDFs are already small, so expect less. If one pass isn't enough, try the "Tiny" quality setting.

Shrink your PDF now

Free, private, no upload.

Open the Compress tool →

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