How to Reduce PDF File Size for Email and Upload Forms
A 10-page scan from a phone can easily be 30 MB — too big for most email providers and upload forms. Almost all of that weight is images, which is good news: images compress well.
Open the Compress PDF tool → Free, nothing is uploaded
Compress the pages
- Open Compress PDF and drop the file.
- Choose Medium (110 DPI) for normal documents or Strong for the smallest file.
- Click Compress; the new size is shown before you download.
Pages are re-rendered as compact images, which shrinks scans by 50–90%. Text is no longer selectable, so keep the original if you need to copy text from it.
Remove what you do not need
Blank pages, duplicates and attachments add up. Remove them with Delete PDF pages, or keep only the relevant pages with Split PDF.
Scan smarter next time
Scanning in grayscale at 150–200 DPI instead of color at 300–600 DPI produces files a fraction of the size and is perfectly readable.
Frequently asked questions
What size limit do email providers have?
Gmail and Yahoo accept attachments up to 25 MB, Outlook up to 20 MB. Many upload forms allow only 2–10 MB.
My text-only PDF does not get smaller — why?
PDFs that contain mostly text are already compact; converting them to images would make them bigger, so the original is kept.