Compress PDF shrinks a too-big PDF so it slips under email attachment caps and upload limits. It rasterizes each page to a JPEG at a quality and max dimension you choose, then rebuilds a lean, image-only PDF — ideal for photo-heavy scans, where the bloat is in the images, not the text. You see the original size against the new size before you keep it, and if the rebuild somehow isn't smaller, it hands back your original untouched.
Every page is rendered and re-packed right in your browser, so the document is never uploaded to a server. That matters when the file is a signed contract, a medical scan, or a financial statement you can't paste into a random website. Turn on airplane mode and it still compresses — the unfakeable proof that nothing left your device.
Add the oversized PDF — a scanned packet, a deck exported to print, a stack of photos. It loads straight into the browser tab, so there's no upload wait, no server size cap, and nothing is sent anywhere.
Pick a JPEG quality and a maximum page dimension. Lower quality and smaller dimensions mean a smaller file; you can dial in the trade-off and re-run until the size and the look are both where you want them.
See the original size next to the rebuilt size before you commit. Download the smaller image-only PDF — generated entirely on your device. If the rebuild isn't actually smaller, you get your original back instead.
Court portals and opposing counsel often reject attachments over a few megabytes, and scanned exhibit packets blow right past that. Compress PDF shrinks the scan to fit without sending a privileged document through a third-party server. Because it runs on your laptop, "never uploaded" is something you can put in writing to a client — and airplane mode proves it.
An intake form, an EOB, or a personnel record scanned at high resolution can be far too big to attach to an EHR message or HRIS ticket. Compress it down on-device so the file fits without that PHI or personal data touching an outside server, sidestepping the business-associate-agreement question an upload tool would raise. Set a sensible max dimension and the form stays perfectly legible at a fraction of the size.
Bank statements, invoices, and receipt bundles scanned for an audit trail are usually image-heavy and oversized for email. Drop the file in, set a quality, and send a lean copy to the auditor or vendor — without the account details ever leaving your machine. The before-and-after sizes let you confirm the savings before you commit.
When a scanned application, a multi-page receipt, or a photo-stuffed PDF won't send because it's too large, this is the quick fix. No signup, no install — drop the PDF, pick a quality, and download a smaller version that fits under the limit. It's free to try, and your file stays on your device the whole time.
Most of a bloated PDF's weight comes from images and scanned pages stored at print resolution. Compress PDF leans into that: it renders each page to a canvas with pdf.js, re-encodes it as a JPEG at the quality and maximum dimension you set, and rebuilds a brand-new image-only PDF with pdf-lib. Lower quality and a smaller max dimension produce a smaller file; you choose where to land. The deliberate cost is that the output has no selectable or searchable text — every page is now a picture of itself — so this is the right tool for scans, photos, and exports you mainly need to view or send, not for documents you'll keep editing. Keep your original editable file and share the compressed copy.
Rasterizing isn't a universal win. A clean, text-only PDF is often already smaller than the JPEG version of the same pages, so blindly rebuilding it could make things worse. Compress PDF checks the rebuilt size against the original and, if the new file isn't actually smaller, simply returns your original untouched. You always walk away with the smaller of the two, and the size comparison is shown up front so there are no surprises.
Plenty of free PDF compressors work by uploading your document to their servers, shrinking it there, and sending it back — which means a contract, a medical scan, or a statement briefly lives on someone else's infrastructure under their retention and training terms. The files most worth compressing are often the ones you least want to hand to a stranger. Compress PDF never does that: pdf.js and pdf-lib run in your browser, so the document is never transmitted, stored, or used for training. For anyone working under HIPAA, an NDA, or a confidentiality duty, that's not a marketing line — it's a fact you can verify by switching to airplane mode and watching it keep working.
No. Compress PDF runs entirely in your browser using pdf.js and pdf-lib, so your document is read, rasterized, and rebuilt on your own device. Nothing is uploaded, stored, or used for training. You can switch to airplane mode and it still compresses — proof the file never left your machine.
Yes, compressing a PDF is free with a generous tier and no signup to try. Pro ($9/mo or $69/yr, or $4/mo for this app alone) unlocks batch compression with ZIP export, no watermark, and unlimited history across every nimbril tool.
No, and that's the honest trade-off. To shrink the file, each page is flattened to a JPEG image and rebuilt as an image-only PDF, so there's no text layer left to select, copy, or search. If you need a searchable copy, keep your original editable file and only share the compressed version.
It depends on the file and your settings, but you control the trade-off with the quality slider and max dimension. The biggest wins come from photo-heavy or scanned PDFs, where the size lives in high-resolution images. The tool shows the original size versus the new size so you can stop at the sweet spot — and if the rebuild isn't smaller, it keeps your original.
Because this tool works by rasterizing pages to JPEGs, it shines on image- and scan-heavy PDFs but can do little — or even add size — on a clean, text-only document that's already efficient. In that case the keep-the-original safeguard kicks in and returns your file unchanged, so you never end up with a larger result by accident.
Because nothing uploads, there are no server-imposed size caps. The work happens on your device, so the practical limit is your computer's available memory rather than an upload quota. Very large or high-page-count PDFs simply take a little longer to render.