PDFora
Free forever · nothing uploaded

Compress PDF

This tool shrinks a PDF by recompressing the JPEG images inside it — the actual driver of file size on scanned or photo-heavy PDFs — while leaving text and everything else untouched. Pick a level, compress, then download. No signup, no watermark, nothing uploaded.

  • No signup
  • No watermark
  • No file limit
  • Free at download

Three steps

Shrink a PDFwithout losing the text.

  1. Select your PDF, or drop it onto the page. It opens in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
  2. Choose a compression level — Light, Recommended or Aggressive.
  3. Click Compress, check the before/after size, then download.

Why use this tool

Smaller file,same document.

A free online PDF compressor with no app to install. Built for the common case — a scanned document or a PDF full of photos that is too big to email — without turning the whole page into a blurry image.

  • Shrinks the actual causeRecompresses the JPEG images inside the PDF — usually the real reason a scanned or photo-heavy file is large.
  • Text never touchedVector text and graphics are left exactly as they were — nothing gets rasterized, blurry, or hard to select.
  • Three levelsLight, Recommended or Aggressive — see the before/after size before you download.
  • Scoped honestlyCompresses JPEG-encoded images; a mostly-text PDF may see little change, and the page says so.

Need to hit a specific file size?

If a form or portal rejects anything over a certain size, a dedicated target page tries harder settings automatically until your file fits: 100KB, 200KB, 300KB, 500KB, 1MB, 2MB.

Need to cut pages, not shrink them?

Delete PDF Pages or Split PDF reduce a file by removing content instead of recompressing it.

The question everybody asks

Is it really free?

Yes. No account, no trial, no watermark on the output, no cap on file size or page count, and no payment step between you and the download button.

It is free because it is cheap to run: your PDF is compressed by your own browser, so there is no upload, no server doing the work and no storage to pay for. That is also why the privacy answer is short — the file never leaves your device.

Why this is free → How files are handled

FAQ

Questions peopleactually ask.

Will this shrink any PDF?

It works best on PDFs with photos or scanned pages — that is almost always where the size actually comes from. A PDF that is mostly text may barely change, because there is little to compress in the first place.

Does compressing make the text blurry or impossible to select?

No. Only the JPEG images inside the PDF are recompressed — the text, vector graphics and everything else are left completely untouched, so nothing about the document's text changes.

Which compression level should I pick?

Recommended is a good default for most files. Light keeps images closest to the original if quality matters most; Aggressive gets the smallest file when size matters more than image quality.

Does this compress every kind of image inside a PDF?

It recompresses images stored as JPEG, which is the common case for photos and scans. A few less common internal image formats are left as-is rather than risk corrupting them.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. Compression runs entirely in your browser, so there is no upload cap and no daily limit.

Is my file uploaded anywhere?

No. The PDF is opened, compressed and re-saved entirely in your browser tab.

Related tools

Compressing is one job.Here is the rest.

Dashed cards are in build — they are not links yet.